


Word and Deed

by EgregiousDerp



Category: Naruto
Genre: Chapter Titles Will Correspond To Prompt Fills, GaaLee Bingo, Let’s give Gaara a Midlife Crisis, M/M, Post-Boruto Era, Semi-Unsafe for Scarlet, Soulmates AU, Tags with prompt fills may also be added as we go, maybe not ‘soulmates’ per se but more like, some background pairings - Freeform, some people get names on their skin in times of emotional significance and some don’t
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:49:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27210745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EgregiousDerp/pseuds/EgregiousDerp
Summary: Gaara finds the name for the first time a month and two days before Lee’s forty-seventh birthday, the thread-like kana blurring into the damp Konohan earth sticking to his skin so he thinks at first he’s imagined it. It’s forgotten with a blink and a shake of his head.————Or “Lee’s a blank, and Gaara discovers he’s something of a late-bloomer.”
Relationships: Gaara/Rock Lee
Comments: 36
Kudos: 69
Collections: GaaLee Bingo





	1. Soulmates AU

**Author's Note:**

> I had 15k on another fill locked up because I can’t get the first chapter to gel by the next week, and I’ve got a lot of lasting internal problems with most Soulmate AUs and the ideals of destiny thereof so whaddup.
> 
> While it’s probably established in the fic, a name here shows up on certain people because of a strong emotional bond. It could be platonic, romantic, or even adversarial, so it’s a looser version of Soul Marking than most.
> 
> I’ll try to put topic warnings at the beginnings of gnarly chapters, but since I’m honestly still deciding how I want to run this as we go, things might change.
> 
> Many thanks to Sweets and Greyson for reading through this to see how coherent the concept was, and for being my sounding boards as I battered out exactly what shape I wanted this to be and how I want the pacing to develop.

————

  
Gaara finds the name for the first time a month and two days before Lee’s forty-seventh birthday, the thread-like kana blurring into the damp Konohan earth sticking to his skin so he thinks at first he’s imagined it. 

It’s forgotten with a blink and a shake of his head.

His sunhat keeps his hair from falling out from behind his ears with the gesture. The growing strands brush his shoulders now, and thankfully keep the back of his neck warm at least. He should be wearing gloves, but the feel of Konoha’s cold soil is the feel of the soul of the land, and the Nara plots have been sacred country longer than Konoha has been a nation. For a foreigner to be given a bit of it, much less a home on it is unheard of. -Not that he’s decided to stay.

He’s been officially retired two months, passing the far heavier hat and title of Kazekage on with pride to his son, Shinki.

He’s the first Kazekage not to die in office, which is a sobering thought to pass onto Shinki’s iron-heavy shoulders. Which isn’t to say that Shinki isn’t ready. Only that he may be more ready for the reality of the office than Gaara is to pass on that burden to him.

That’s precisely why he’s here.

He moved himself three days away to avoid temptation, to respect his son’s dreams, and to be closer to the rest of his family. And to his friend, Naruto. It’s crucial to do so during the transition. Shinki is...deferential to him to say the least. And there are plenty in Suna who would prefer him over his son, no matter what they say to his face. He’s a known quantity. A more direct tie to his father, Rasa, and the illusion of stability.

Teaching Shinki to endure the cheap things that could be said whether he’d done any wrong or not was a lesson the same as any other.

Gaara feels the ground in his bones. He knows well that nothing in the desert is stable, and that breath is less than nothing.

Shinki is brilliant. And hungry.  
  


He’s grown up to be a fine leader.

Those who hope to find a naive tool in Gaara’s absence will be...thoroughly surprised and disappointed.

He’s taught Shinki everything. Both by his deliberate intent and by his mistakes. He’s poured himself out as generously as Konohan water to make his son strong, and not only that, to let his son know that he’s _loved_ , and that Gaara is more proud of him than he could ever be of himself.

He’s going to be a fine Kazekage.

Is one, probably. Already.

He’s left his son Kankuro at least. Who’s a wily advisor for all his complaining, and a thoroughly skilled intelligence head. And he’s left a fistful of sand tucked away in the depths of _black ant_ , ready to form a third eye if the temptation or concern becomes...overwhelming.

It’s best he doesn’t look now.

No one thrives at first in the Kage’s seat. No matter how much they wish to be there.  
  


Gaara knows this.

He was hungry and ambitious himself once, and at the time of his retirement he was the senior member of the Kage Council, despite not being the eldest of the Kage.

Shinki will be its youngest. The first of the new generation to ascend.

Gaara has a great deal of self control. He’s managed not to reach for the scrying jutsu thus far by throwing himself into the work of the land here. What he hopes for he couldn’t say.

Change, perhaps.

Or thriving, despite his knowledge.

Something bigger and more lasting than himself, and the peace they bought through blood.

He has the highest of hopes for Shinki.

However, he was Kazekage for thirty years. He has thirty years of routine to break.

Even in his official retirement, he’s only just stopped wearing his sand armor as a matter of course outside within the past week, using it instead to begin the slow process of planting his sand, his chakra into the earth itself to get the sort of drainage he needs to seed a crop of desert melons next year. Their juice is just the right mixture of salt and sweetness to refresh and replenish even the driest desert tongue. A taste of Suna.

... _If_ he’s here at all when the season comes.

Desert Bitter Melon grows well in Suna’s soil. Planting it here...is a challenge. Maybe to himself. Maybe a way of forcing himself not to run back and throw himself like a protective barrier in Shinki’s way.  
  


Maybe a sort of repayment for his elder brother’s kindness in letting Gaara live on the Nara lands.

Gaara frowns and wipes his hairless brow, leaving a streak of dirt down one cheek.

As long as he keeps moving he doesn’t feel the cold as badly, but he isn’t comfortable in the Konohan Autumn. And the shadows of the trees around him make him feel as though he’s stuck in a very deep, but also constantly moving valley, constant with noise and wet.  
  


He’s still adjusting.

The days are so mild and chilly he’s worked through his noonday catnaps twice so far without noticing it was actually noon. And his nights have been spent bundled up, with the window open, waiting for Shinki’s latest messenger hawks, or for the hint that Lee has returned from his mission.

Gaara stills for just a moment, staring at the soil.

Lee could come back any day.

Any day.

Naruto’s dropped by once so far with four bowls of takeout ramen, his daughter, and a bright orange tatami as a welcoming gift that’s maybe also a gift for Lee when he comes home. _If_ he comes home in time. Before his birthday, Gaara hopes. Naruto wouldn’t say what mission required the use of both of Konoha’s Taijutsu specialists. Such hard missions are almost a thing of the past.

The fresh matting is the color of Lee’s legwarmers, which makes Gaara feel wistful, and experience some other strange emotion he thinks could be happiness.

Lee and his little Metal could be back any day...

Any day.

Gaara stares at his garden blankly.

Himawari had brought him flowers. And a teapot. Shaped like Shukaku. A _collectible,_ according to her _._

Gaara had been in politics far too long to not have an excellent poker face. The teapot was lumpy, slightly lopsided. The grumpy Tanuki face was dead on, though.

She’d called him Kazekage-Sama at first before he’d corrected her.

Then called him _uncle Gaara_. And hadhad Naruto’s crooked fox-smile and too-loud laugh, hair close-cropped in choppy layers that stuck out like the petals of a flower, dressed all in bright squash-yellows as loud as Naruto’s old windbreakers could ever be.

Gaara has a particular bulb packed away for the winter he has half a mind to gift her. Naruto has mentioned she had a particular love of flowers.

Gaara smiles very slightly at the dirt.

He kept to himself that he suspects she also has a particular liking for one denizen in particular of the Yamanaka flower shop.

He’s seen the boy’s jutsu in passing, and knows Inojin is fond of bright colors, after all. And he’s seen the little colorful tiger that coils around Sai’s papery wristbone.  
  


The openness of Konoha about its bonds had been another reason he’d come here in his retirement.

It isn’t a name on Sai’s wrist. Gaara’s never asked if it’s an artificial bond mark, a commemoration of joy. He knows these things are done. And the people of Konoha wear their marks openly. But he’s Sunan, and raised Sunan, and as blunt as he has a reputation for being, even Gaara would feel rude asking such a thing. Pointing out such a thing.

Gaara notices the open marks like he notices any other feature: a once-broken nose, or a ring in a lip, or the color of a person’s eyes. And perhaps that’s what drew him to Konoha so strongly, even when he was a child: that hope of openness. The distance from everything that’s ever shaped or clung to him, molding him like just another shapeless, markless collectible.

He has always been what he was made to be.

After all this time, it’s time for him to be what he really is.

Gaara putters around his squash runners and checks the progress on his collection of nearly ripe gourds, which Lee and precious Little Metal (though Metal’s been far taller than Gaara, and even taller than Lee for a while now,) will hollow out and turn into a set of bird houses for the “spring” Gaara’s only seen briefly, and realizes he might see again and again and again.

The thought’s as cautious as a footstep into a sandstorm.

He _might_ see it.

Lee’s been eagerly talking about birds and birdsong and springtime almost since Gaara’s gotten to Konoha. His voice, his presence, his greenness as pervasive as the land.

(His gentleness-)

Gaara tightens his hands, and moves more briskly, rubbing his fingers together to warm up.

That will be for _after_ the winter he can already feel coming, in any event. The native Konohans say it’s been an unusually warm and mild year so far, but nothing about the dramatic shift of Konoha’s seasons feels mild to Gaara. Leaves, which he’s still only getting used to, are falling. The smell of burning is in the air. The harvest. The second moon viewing of the season is upcoming, though the moon still leaves Gaara uneasy.

The cold of an empty bed and a sleepless mind...

Gaara glances at the edge of the orange tatami for just a moment.

He doesn’t think about anything in particular for a moment. Just a wistful pang of loneliness.

Nothing unmanageable.

It will end any day now, after all.

Any day now…

It’s something he can take, knowing it will have an end, just like he knows Lee’s skin is the color of the old leaves piling up beneath the trees. Solid, and strangely reassuring.

Something tentative.

Remaking.

Gaara sighs and turns back to his plants.

He should enjoy the quiet while it lasts.

He thinks about the letter that morning from Kankuro. Nothing important. An eagle had attacked a councilman and he’d found it funny.

Gaara couldn’t ask anything important. Couldn’t ask after Shinki.

_The leaves in the land of Fire look like flames in the Autumn_. He’d sent back. A single sentence. A dozen others crossed out in his mind before the pen even touched paper. Anyone else would have sent the mail electronically, but the electronic mail was public. He’d sent his tiny scroll, and pouch full of colorful leaves he thought would probably delight Araya in particular. A message not even a paying hand or a prying eye could detect the affection in.

Shinki had Kankuro. He also had Yodo and Araya.

He wasn’t alone.

Gaara shuts his eyes for a moment.

Shinki isn’t alone.

He’ll be fine.

Gaara’s moved on to checking the pods of his overgrown peas when he notices again. Just the shape at first, notices with a sort of peripheral awareness and observation that the marks on the back of his hand are too regular to be mere dirt, faded, and patchy in places.

He goes still.

Sinks for a second into the earth, touching the faded kana stretching across the knuckles of his right hand. The hand that has shaken many others in treaties and in formality, the hand that once crushed lives with a gesture. He wonders for a moment if he wrote something down there, unthinking, but he isn’t Kankuro, who takes notes on his skin, and Gaara’s memory is usually excellent-

All at once it dawns on him what he’s looking at.

Gaara covers his mouth for just a moment, staring.

It’s his hand. Dirty, and now-trembling.

The garden tremors around him like a little private earthquake, the spirit of his mother making the foundations of the borrowed home behind him creak and groan.

Creatures shriek in the forest, alarmed.

Gaara barely notices, breath shaking and shuddering as he grinds dirt off chaste skin, his world rearranging in an instant.

He once led the five nations in a war, was born loveless and alone into this world. A Kage, retired. A glorified civilian now, resorting to pushing his greatest weapon into the dirt surrounding his home in the hope his sand will scare the animals away from his vegetables, because a mouse cares nothing about his former titles, his body count, or about whispered conversations alone with another man who was once his enemy, who visits him sometimes, and whose skin is as blank as his own, his hopes maybe just as fragile and quiet.

Gaara’s forty-five years old when he leans too heavily and his gourd collapses beneath him with a groan and a whisper of sand. He pushes off his hat, and spits on his apron, scouring hastily at the mud as if it will fade the marks, reading the name spanning his knuckles for the first time, then reading it again in disbelief, tracing the shape of the faded kana with a fingertip.

He’s forty-five and utterly alone when he finds a single character on each knuckle of his right hand, putting them together, recognizing.

It’s a name. A soul mark.

He isn’t alone.

Gaara has a soulmate.

————


	2. Long Distance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Genetically modified potatoes. (Well. Okay. This one’s pretty safe.)
> 
> Mentions of Chronic Pain!Lee.
> 
> Many thanks to Greyson for looking this over.

———— 

A Shinobi should know better than to make a racket returning from a mission, but it’s the final stretch of a day-long race through their native country, and Lee’s never been great at hiding his happiness as he tears through the forest racing his only son, their Chunin vests unzipped, and flying open behind them like wings, allowing the brisk fall air to cool the sweat of their bodies.

He’s exhausted. Delight keeps him going just as youthfully as when he started.

Lee’s skill is greater than Metal’s, granted, but Metal’s legs are longer and his knees don’t ache. (Though there isn’t much of Lee that doesn’t ache. He ached before the gates. He ached when he was a child. Pain was his companion even at the Academy. Pain will be with him until he dies.)

He and Metal have been racing for a week now. Without any real heat because neither of them wishes to really lose sight of the other.

That moderation is a thing Lee’s learned as late as he learns everything else. (And there’s a gift for Neji’s grave rattling around in the bottom of his pack that’s maybe as much a memory as an apology, for being so slow at understanding even now. Souvenirs for his best friend, and his Sensei.)

Gai-Sensei would be _proud_ , he thinks.

He tries not to dwell too hard on the painful thought of his teacher.

(Metal’s pack is stuffed full of weapons for his favorite aunt, of course. And with gifts for Kakashi-sama, with his curious way of doting by teasing.)

Lee bounds off the side of a tree to avoid Metal’s shuriken, gauging the curve and delighting in his son’s precision.

He puffs out a laugh.

“You will have to do better than that, my sweet Metal!”

His grin falters when he spots the row of exploding tags on the three Kunai hurtling through the air in front of him.

He leaps as the forest below them billows with smoke.

Not exploding tags! _Smoke_ tags!

Lee thrills for a moment at his son’s cleverness and thoughtfulness both. The Nara are protective of their forest. They would protest a fire within its borders.

The satisfaction on his son’s narrow face morphs into a look of surprise as Lee spins into a _Konoha Whirlwind_ so powerful it dispels the cloud of his smoke. That face is worth far more than the three sweet potatoes Lee grabs out of his basket, neatly flipping over his son’s head.

“Aah! _Papa_! Those are for Gaara-San!”

“Then it would seem that you have failed to protect them properly if it was so easy for me to take them!” Lee laughs, mouth half full of potato.

The flesh is sweet, starchy, and still so hot it burns the roof of his mouth and tongue.

“Please! If you eat while you are running you will choke, Papa!”

“I will not choke! And I will not lose!”

Metal’s cry of protest is lost to Lee’s laughter.

All around him he can smell the dirt, the earth, and it smells like the crescents left under Gaara-Kim’s nails, the sky the color of his precious friend’s eyes-

Lee’s ears burn with exertion and a little bubble of happiness. A fresh burst of energy.

“Still- to eat so many-!”

“ _HM?!”_

Metal quails under a look as fierce as any of Gai-sensei’s own.

It’s true, though, that Lee’s waist isn’t as trim as it used to be. Heavy labor helping out in the Land of Stone has seen to that. Lee’s fists can break bones, but they can also break rock, can shape mountains, and his core’s thickened to protect his body. But it’s hard for him to pretend he doesn’t miss the days when he could circle the breadth of his hips with a single band. 

(Or that he doesn’t remember Gai-sensei’s impressive V silhouette at the fine age of fifty, when the silver was just starting to touch his temples, making him seem wise and distinguished even with his legs in the air and his palms on the ground...)

All at once, the potato seems less sweet in Lee’s mouth.

He’s distracted enough he doesn’t react in time, feeling the flare of chakra along his spine. Just like that Metal suddenly ahead of him.

“Ah! That is a low trick, using Space-Time Jutsu, Metal!”

“ _It is a legitimate strategy of youth, Papa!_ ” Metal yells, running for all he’s worth, broad shoulders scrunched up in guilt.

It is indeed a legitimate strategy, and Lee is so proud of him his heart _aches._

He puts a burst of youth behind his steps, ignoring the burn of his laughter in his lungs.

Metal hasn’t laid any other grounding points for his rare Jutsu any place around them but Lee’s own skin, the seal a comfort and a bond right between his shoulderblades, heating like a flash whenever Metal uses it to appear at his side. This route is new to him, and the Nara are protective of their lands. He won’t have any other grounding points.

The mark’s invisible when not in use.

Lee tries not to feel guilty at it.

The mark that grounds Metal’s teleportation isn’t a creation of his own body, after all. Lee’s skin is as bare as it has been since the day he was born. And his son’s transportation mark only shows when active after all. A white-hot flare.

Lee squares his shoulders.

Well...

He’s borne greater pain than his only son wanting to be close to him. (And Surpass him. But...without a desire to leave him far behind. The tug of his jutsu like a rope.)

A space time tether is a seal one wears to their death.

Even Lee knows this, when he hears whispers of his son’s name and the fourth Hokage’s in the same breath.

When he hears people call his son a _Genius_ , as they never called him.

When they forget that the only other living practitioner of space time jutsu in the village is Metal’s Aunt TenTen. Not the _Yellow Flash_ , who’s been dead for decades, and a half dozen of whose daggers sit in the back of TenTen’s weapon’s shop. Not the fourth Hokage whose weapons ride in TenTen’s belt, and in Metal’s hair, connecting the two with a bond of shared knowledge and ability, an excitement as close as blood family.

To have someone willing to mark Lee at all, and include him in such a tailored and personal experiment should feel like a blessing.

Lee knows this.

He also knows all too well what it’s like to be left behind.

Over.

And over.

And he knows loneliness as deeply as he knows how to fight.

The narrow tail of his son’s braid, with the tri-pronged knife tied to the end of it flashes in the light as he moves. His mission hair. When he comes home he ties it up, tucking the knife like a decoration in his high topknot.

He’s ahead for now, but always glancing back, to make sure his Papa’s still behind him.

Lee’s heart aches just behind his eighth gate wondering how much longer he’ll have before Metal stops looking back for him entirely.

He wonders if this is how his Sensei felt.

Lee inhales, and the swell of his chakra overwhelms his first gate easily. Alarmingly easily. Unbidden even, a rush of speed carrying his limbs.

“Ah! Papa!”

Lee thinks he understands his teacher more and more.

_I am sorry but while I have strength, I need you to watch my back for a little while longer, Metal._

_It is cruel, but I must have you believe in me just a while longer._

They round a cove of trees, and Lee spots the neat rows of Gaara’s vegetable patch, the old gourd hung with seals slung on the back of a drooping scarecrow, the house’s shutters always drawn up so it looks like no one lives there except for the window that leads to Gaara’s bedroom, facing the rising moon.

Which...Lee knows for reasons he’d rather not dwell on or misconstrue, just like he knows it will be left open. It still adds a little extra, guilty excitement to his steps so he soars further ahead of his son with a squawk of triumph, trailing his bandages like streamers.

Metal dives to catch a wayward potato as Lee crows his victory.

“Yosh! That is another point for me!”

“ _Papaaaa_...” Metal sighs, and takes a bite of the fallen potato, trying to catch his breath. Dutifully replenishing his chakra.

(Lee knows he’s fortunate to have a son at all, let alone one so good and dutiful. He’s grateful for that.)

Lee’s whole body is warm and tingling, singing with exertion and with youth.

“Gaara-kun! Gaara-kun! We are home!” Lee yells, hopping out of the great groove his dynamic entry has driven into the earth next to Gaara’s soybeans.

“Gaara-san!” Metal shouts eagerly, his boyish features flushed with the exertion of their youthful run together. His arms are full to bursting, steam rising from his bag. He stares at Lee as if for reassurance, but his grin is wide and happy when his Papa shoots him a thumbs up. 

“Uhm! Excuse us, Gaara-san! If it is not too much trouble-“ Metal looks at his father for reassurance. Lee nods vigorously to encourage him, uncorking their water jugs and going to refill them from the garden hose left coiled on the scarecrow’s arm. His heart swells at the sparkle in his son’s eyes as they meet his. “We have a lot of sweet potatoes! A special kind!”

Lee pantomimes a little more urgently, nodding so hard his son’s concerned face became a blur.

_Come on, Metal! You can do it!_

Metal gawks at him for a second and only stutters just a little when he realizes the step he’s missed.

“So please come and join us, Gaara-san?”

Lee punches the air excitedly.

“ _Yosh_! Gaara-kun! You must join us in our youthful enjoyment of the season and our festive selection, all the way from Kirigakure!”

“ _Yosh_!” Metal squeaks as Lee triumphantly raises a tuber.

“One taste of these beautiful blue beasts will have you glad that you have come all this way, Gaara-kun!”

“Please enjoy our potatoes, Gaara-San!”

Silence echoes from the house in response.

Metal’s face falls.

“Gaara...San?”

Lee lowers his green potato.

“Gaara-kun? Where are you, Gaara-kun?”

Gingerly he opens the door.

“Gaara-kun! We are home!” He calls into the house while Metal whispers behind him _yes. I’m home._ fiddling with his basket.

No answer.

The house is empty and cold.

Lee withdraws his head.

“How odd. Perhaps he is out running some sort of errand?”

Metal fidgets some more, his feet pointing inwards. Lee clears his throat so his son’s attempt at stooping jerks back up into ramrod posture. (Lee doesn’t like that Metal feels ashamed of his height. It’s not as though he’s much taller than the lovely Hinata-san, and the Hokage’s wife is a very tall and elegant woman indeed.)

“ _Papa._..” he begins. He’s blinking hard now, eyes watering like a child’s.

“My wonderful Metal! If that is the case, we should be ready with a magnificent feast for his return! One taste of our refreshing youth repast and the weariness will leave Gaara-kun’s heart for sure!”

Lee could explain away the warmth in his cheeks as he pictured Gaara’s subdued smile of gratitude, his, _you did this for me?_ as nothing more than the flush of exercise.

He was eager as a boy all inside. Restless with excitement. With the desire to clasp Gaara in his arms and fill him full of the marvelous blue potatoes, their aftertaste a tang of metal, almost like blood.

“But- Papa, What if he is avoiding us? What if he-?”

“ _Metal_ ,” Lee cuts him off sternly. “Gaara-kun would do no such thing. In all of the years that you have known him, has Gaara-kun ever once been harsh or laughed at you?”

Metal’s eyes fill with tears.

“ _He has laughed at me?_ ”

“ _He has never laughed!_ ” Lee bellows, jabbing a triumphant finger at the sky. “Gaara-kun’s heart is gentle! And he works tirelessly even on vacation! It is surely an errand and it is up to us to welcome him to our land anew on his return, so his pure heart wells over with gratitude!”

(And he could explain away the warmth again of course as his mind’s eye Gaara blushed and sighed _you did this all for me?_ softly glowing, pink-tinged at the edges with the thought of his embrace, his sigh of Lee’s name.)

It takes Lee a moment to ramp down that fantasy _hard_.

The real Gaara was a bit terse and blunt. Not unkind, but _blunt_. And he forgot to take his shoes off half the time at the door, and used his sand to scare the deer off his row of pumpkins no matter how many times Lee tearfully told him they were _sacred_ and it was horrible luck if he ever hurt them.

(Which Gaara-kun had been very _Gaara-kun_ about: _I’m not hurting them. I’m scaring them._ )

Metal dashes at his tears, his willowy shoulders heaving.

Lee’s so _proud_ of him.

“Right!” Metal squawks, his voice breaking like a teenager’s.

“Go!” Lee shouts, whirling the basket out of his son’s arms so Metal wobbled like an academy student trying to execute a _Konoha Whirlwind_. “Use the full power of your youth and teleport your Papa some beautiful blue curry ingredients so that we may treat Gaara-kun to another taste of Konoha and make him glad of his choice to visit!”

“ _Yosh!_ ” Metal cried, before he was gone in a flare of chakra, a flash of his knife seeking its twin.

Lee’s smile faltered and went wistful the moment his son was gone. When he realized just how quiet the forest really was. How empty Gaara’s little house was.

He realizes all at once how _tired_ he really is. Aching. Shaking slightly as he comes down from the high of the run and the press of the first gate.

He _hurts._ Like he never used to.

Lee takes deep breaths to ground himself through the pain.

He’s gotten better at pushing through it of course but Gai-Sensei talking about pain had never mentioned the threshold at which the pain...just never went away. Intensified.

Lee had thought he’d known pain when he’d started, that he had nothing to fear.

Even for someone who grew up in pain, there was a cost of using the Gates.

Lee gasps to catch his breath and gets his face back under control.

Gaara-kun’s window is open, he reminds himself, forcing his body out of doubling over, doing a few practice jabs and stretches to ground himself.

It’s past noon, and Lee feels a bit guilty for not being entirely up front with his son.

Perhaps he woke him. 

He thinks of many dozens of small gestures he might do to apologize.

He feels like a thief, or possibly an assassin sneaking through the bedroom window though. Most unyouthful.   
  


The little flutter of tender excitement behind his breastbone refuses to quash.

“Gaara-kun?” He whispers.

He’s surprised a second time.

Gaara’s bed is unmade, piled with red sheets and a brown coverlet stuffed with lightning country goose down. Lee’s heart hammers in his chest just looking at it, still oddly disappointed not to find Gaara resting in those sheets, dark-rimmed eyes barely opening at his noise, chapped lips tacky with sleep and irritation.

Lee forces some distance to those thoughts, curbs the shameful longing. He knows he falls too hard, too quickly. Remembers well the feeling of marker on his arm, of hope. Loud declarations that went nowhere.

He’s a fool, he knows. Losing his youth, and losing his shape, and with Metal even thinking of leaving him to live in the Shinobi barracks-

(How much courage it took his sweet young son to wave his arms, backpedaling and saying it was only so that he didn’t disturb his papa with his missions, and Lee’s own awareness of the fresh tattoo on his son’s long, pale bicep, hidden under his clothes-)

The mark of ANBU.

Metal had never even told him he was considering ANBU, babbling away after the fact with much waving of his hands that he wanted to serve his country and besides Iwabee-kun and Denki-kun-

Lee sighs.

He knows how it feels to want to protect your teammates. Your country.

Just like he knows he shouldn’t have let that loneliness guide him to give in so easily, and that he should be proud of his son-

(He should know better all the same. Should have Metal as proof enough of how much it will hurt him to be alone-)

Still…

Lee frowns, a hand resting on Gaara’s red sheets.

What darkness must Naruto-kun see in his little Metal, though? Should he have been more diligent as a father? Exorcised it away?

Lee drops a hand to a pillow still divoted in the center.

He draws it to his nose, inhaling the oily secondhand scent of Gaara’s hair-

Lee grips the pillow.

( _It is alright. He has probably...simply stepped out on an errand_.)

Lee inhales sharply.

  
_If I could only see him I would feel much better-_

No! 

Lee shakes his head hard. He cannot be selfish at a time like this, much less hold back Metal’s desired career for his own ego, and his own fear!

Just as he cannot let his own fear control him when he notices no other marks on his son’s body. No names. Nothing but his fresh ANBU tattoo, and the hopes that doesn’t mean his son is destined to die young or alone or both.

(If Metal were the same as him-)

Lee’s mismatched hands curl into fists, bandages creaking.

If his son had no name on his body, and no name on another...

He couldn’t _bear_ it.

Lee buries his face back in the pillow, breathing in the scent of dirt, of oil. (Gaara-kun thinks daily showers are beyond extravagant. And he is _definitely_ coming back- He would not leave- at least not without a note- not without an explanation- He _would not_ -)

Gaara-kun is blunt. Plain-dealing.

He would surely say something-

Lee finds his hand resting just under his collar, pressure and warmth like an old dream.

He lets his smile drop just for a moment, burying his face a little deeper in Gaara’s pillow.

And he lets himself plead with the universe to at least let his son’s life be different than his.

————

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whaddup, I’m Skuun, I’m EgregiousDerp on tumblr, and I believe the kids in Boruto should have some nice little power upgrades so I’m gonna. As a treat.


	3. “That’ll never happen”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gaara comes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greyson Legit got this chapter this morning and I rushed through the rest of editing it with a mind to the comments given, so any last minute additions or recommendations not followed through on are on me for trying to skate in on one last GaaLee Bingo fill. 
> 
> Please note this chapter contains non-graphic and fairly matter-of-fact discussion of sex, and of erectile dysfunction with a medical professional. Also a mention of self harm (scarification), and non-sexual nudity. Content is still pretty solidly within the T rating but warned for nonetheless.

————

Sakura eyes his knuckles.

She very carefully doesn’t make eye contact with him. And though she’s incredibly professional, she neither comments on, nor looks too closely at his scars.

Gaara appreciates that much at least.

She pulls off her glasses after a moment, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

The two frown lines between her petal-thin eyebrows are almost identical to Gaara’s own. Slightly differently angled to accommodate the jewel in her forehead.

Sasuke’s name flashes down the length of her right forearm, across the back of her hand, and disappears as her hand drops.

Gaara notices it like he notices the color of her glasses, like he notices the fan symbol stitched to the back of her clothes, or the clean crescents of her nails.

“Okay. Look, you can get dressed.”

Gaara settles back a little against the examination table.

“It’s not a genjutsu or a fuinjutsu, then.”

Sakura gives him a hard look.

“If you thought that, I don’t know what you’d like _me_ to do about it.”

“As the head of Konoha’s medical division, you’ve seen variations on this-“

“I’ve seen _bewitchment jutsu_ , yeah? And I’ve seen seals that are supposed to look like a mark and-“ Sakura huffs a breath, gripping her arm. “A bunch of Sai’s _weird tattoos_ he does for people but I really don’t know why you think that’s more likely than-“

“Because I’ve never had a mark before.” Gaara whispered. “Except the ones I’ve put on myself to remind myself of the importance of bonds.”

Sakura tapped his forehead with her clipboard, making Gaara blink.

Usually there’s a pause after he utters those kinds of proclamations.

“ _Easy there._ I know those are old but any sort of manual soul marking’s usually a hospital visit and a psych eval no matter _who_ you are.”

Gaara touches the space over his heart, the rows of names there with a huff.

“The majority of these are from before the war.”

Now he sounds defensive. Why? What does he possibly have to defend himself for? He isn’t _threatened_.

Sakura pokes him sharply in the shoulder. The wound her husband left there when they were teenagers.

“Yeah. _I know_. Why do you think you’re still here?”

Gaara breathes out, still slightly startled by the ease with which she touches him, and the unspoken bravery behind it.

Something beyond Konohan Boldness.

  
“You think you could stop me?”

Sakura smiles brightly. 

She chuckles just a little, and doesn’t answer, pointing with her clipboard.

_What?_

  
Her voice is equal parts threatening and cheerful.

“Anyway, I’d better not see you trying to take that one off or-“

“What?” Gaara blinks. “Of course not.”

Sakura’s mouth opens. Closes. Her face softens into a much more genuine smile.

She waves the clipboard idly, staring off into space.

“Well with your history, I mean. It’s not that weird.”

It isn’t.

Gaara takes no offense in the slightest.

“Lee’s name didn’t appear on my skin even when he caused me the agony of loneliness and I fantasized about doing nothing more than killing him and bathing in his blood. I consider this instance ‘weird’.”

Sakura hisses in a breath.

“ _Take it easy, will ya_.”

“I won’t. I have a long history with Rock Lee,” Gaara mutters. “If his name were to appear it should have appeared long ago. The moment he struck me. And the moment his teacher intervened for him.”

Soul Marks appeared at moments of heightened emotional significance.

Sakura looks away, exasperated.

“Well yeah. I mean I _guess_ you’d be right about that.”

Gaara rubs at his knuckles. The marks are getting more pronounced, darker, the name unmistakeable.

“Then we agree. This is. Unusual.”

“Look, I’ve seen way weirder things in this job-“

“Have you ever heard of such a thing?” Gaara interrupts. “A mark, delayed?”

Sakura shrugs, chewing on the arm of her reading glasses.

“...Bond Marks can show up any time so it’s not _that weird_ for someone to get a new one out of the blue.”

“Then why now?”

“Search me.”

Gaara gives her a hard stare.

“You are the _head_ of Konoha’s medical corps and the student of Tsunade, the second-greatest Medical Ninja in the six lands-“

Sakura made a noise of dismissal, but a little smile graced her lips that made her look ten years younger. It was smug.

“Whaddaya mean _second?”_

Gaara gives her a look.

He drops his voice.

“Has she-?”

“ _No_ ,” Sakura makes a face. “God, _no_. Honestly at this rate her liver’s gonna give out before _she_ does.” 

Gaara relaxes slightly. It may be odd, but he liked Tsunade. They understood one another. Two Once-Kage tired of war, a desire for peace their common ground.

“...I’m glad.”

Sakura’s face soured.

“I’d just end up telling her you’re just as much of an _old man_ as ever.”

Gaara crosses his arms, nodding.

“She owes me ten S-tank missions from our last game of Dice, payable from her grandson to my son.”

  
  


“Well yeah but that doesn’t mean you get to get snippy with me about it,” Sakura snorts. “Besides, she said you _cheated_.”

“Obviously,” Gaara said, shrugging. “We’re shinobi.”

Sakura snorted again, hiding her smile behind one hand.

He finds himself smiling back.

“Look... I wouldn’t worry about it. Bodies do weird things all the time. Especially Shinobi bodies. Some people are fine one day and the next day they’re a _mess_. If you don’t actually have a _problem,_ and it isn’t doing anything to you I could _try_ running some tests, or send you over to Ino, but it’s not like we have a lot of information on how bond marks work anyway.”

Gaara’s hopes sank.

“I see...so this is...normal...by Konoha’s standards.”

Sakura shrugs.

”Is there any documented mark for Rock Lee which can be compared against mine?”

That gets a flinch, a look away.

”I don’t think-“ Sakura hesitated. The covering of her own hand advertised guilt. “I can’t give you Lee-san’s medical records.”

Gaara’s eyes narrowed. He was ready to protest he was the Kazekage, but then remembered a hair too late that he wasn’t. Not any longer.

Realized a hair later what she was telling him.

”No one in the entire village has ever worn Rock Lee’s mark?”

He’s surprised by the anger fluttering in his belly.

With everything Lee had done? With all his closeness to his team and to his teacher? Not one person in the village-?

”I just said I can’t answer that!”

”You’ve told me enough.”

“Look, I could tell you what’s changed but I don’t think you’d _like_ it. I remember the last time you asked for my help, you know.”

Gaara stiffens.  
  


Embarrassment is foreign to him but he does feel the tiniest flicker of chagrin.

“...yes. That must have...been abrupt.”

Sakura sighs. She raises her hands.

“As long as you’re in this office it’s fine. But out there? Anyone would have thought-“ she reddens. “Look, I _can’t_ talk about your records outside of this office, but I sent you to Ino, right? So...how’d that go?”

Gaara breathes out, trying to come up with a diplomatic way to describe the experience of having his head poked through by Konoha’s Head of Intelligence.

“My mind was analyzed briefly, before the many anti-scrying jutsu placed on me while in office went off. On a second attempt Ino encountered my younger self and had to remove herself from my mind.”

Sakura winces.

“I figured it’d be rough but...I didn’t think it would be worse than _Sai_... She seemed like she’d be-“

Gaara nods, very small.

“I’m not Sai.”

He barely knows Ino’s husband. Even less than he knows Ino. Knows vaguely that the man was in his brother’s unit during the war.

Sai had had to come and fetch his wife and hold her while her consciousness found its way back to her body. It had taken several hours.

Sai had seemed utterly peaceful throughout. His expression hardly changing. A practiced politician’s smile or nothing at all.

  
A name behind his fallen wife’s ear that wasn’t his.

In hindsight Gaara was surprised _Sakura_ hadn’t been called.

“It was unsuccessful,” Gaara says, staring at the ground. He feels a tiny bit badly for Ino. As little as he knows the Yamanaka clan’s dual heads, he knows Ino even less. He pauses. “I’m still unable to sustain erections without the use of chakra.” Hesitation again. “And it’s been pointed out to me that I don’t...climax.”

Sakura winces.  
  


She folds her reading glasses. Red rimmed, like her daughter’s.

“I gave you some of the Inuzuka pills the last time you talked with me right? You notice any side effects from the stuff I gave you?”

“Some.”

Sakura raises her eyebrows.

”I noticed Aggression. Irritability. Paranoia. I still had to utilize my chakra to get a response.”

Sakura rubs between her eyebrows again.

“I swear between you and _Naruto_ your weird tailed beast biology is gonna be the death of me, and you wanna get mad at _me_ that you got a soul mark?”

Gaara inhales. He stares at his neatly crossed hands, his bare knees.

“I’m not upset with you,” he says quietly, trying to clarify. “I want to understand what’s happening with my body.”

“Well _look_ , the nearest thing to your body that I have is _Naruto_. And Naruto is-“ Sakura cuts off with a little huff of _ugh._ “He’s- _different._ I have enough trouble getting him to show up for his regular medical exams as it is.”

Gaara smiles a little at that.

“I had the feeling you might.”

Sakura sighs again.

“Look. This started after you asked me that...question, so I’m gonna make a guess and say...it was with Lee, wasn’t it? Your whole- reason to want to do that? Full medical confidentiality.”

Gaara stares at the ground.

“I don’t mind people knowing. It isn’t a secret.”

Sakura’s eyebrows raise.

“Yes,” Gaara clarifies. “Yes. It was. It was with Lee.”

“Well if you started having _sex_ with him and his name appeared...I’d say...”

She waves a hand.

Gaara closes his eyes.

“I know what you mean to say. But I don’t love Lee. I’m fond of him. I find him attractive. And I don’t have to worry about tearing him away from a destined bond. This was a pragmatic arrangement.”

“Then what’s the problem? I mean. Aside from-“

Sakura gestures vaguely at his lower half.

“You know, your body being chakra-addicted.”

Gaara’s eyes fly wide open.

That’s a new one.

“ _Addicted_?”

“It’s how you went without sleep when you were a genin, right?” Sakura narrows her eyes. “You turned into the One Tail in front of me you know. When we were Genin.” The tone is reproachful.

Gaara blinks.

He looks away. Swallows. Decides on honesty.

“I’d...forgotten you were there.”

“Of course you did. _Naruto_ was there,” Sakura snorts. “Besides, I didn’t do much.”

Gaara stares at the floor, frowning.

“ _That’s_ what you really want to ask, right?” Sakura prompts, “Why it’s Lee-San and not Naruto.”

“Yes,” Gaara whispers. He stares at his hands. At the name on the back of the one, the letters thick and black and bold. “The feeling is...enjoyable-“

”Oh God, I don’t need to _know-“_

”But the physical sensation is nothing compared to a sense of connection.” Gaara frowns at his knuckles. “There was a time when I thought Naruto understood me more completely than anyone.”

When it was like Naruto’s presence in a room canceled out everything else.

He doesn’t know if he should call it love.

“That guy?” Sakura snorts, “ _Please_. Naruto doesn’t understand himself. Let alone his wife, or his kids, or even you.” She wrinkles her nose. “He’s not the most introspective guy, you know? He _thinks_ he’s got a connection but the only-“

She stopped.

The rubbing at her arm told Gaara everything he’d wanted to know.

Naruto only had one soul bond, and it was to Sasuke.

On his right arm.

Which he’d blown off.

Soul Marks didn’t tell you how to feel about a person. They only denoted significance. Even now, Sasuke could have been a soulmate, or a mortal enemy. The complications of their feelings for one another weren’t lost even on Gaara.

Gaara frowns at the floor.

It isn’t in his nature to be particularly merciful or kind, he thinks, though people tell him otherwise, but he can’t imagine an existence grasping for love on the outskirts of such a turbulent bond.

“Yes.” He murmurs. “I know.”  
  


Sakura has a complicated expression on her face.

It upset him once, tremendously, to feel so much connection with a person. To be changed so completely by Naruto, and still have nothing to show for it but his behavior.

It had _felt_ like the kind of connection that would leave a mark, though.

And it hadn’t.

He has half a mind to reach for Haruno’s wrist.

”Are you...alright?” He asks.

Sakura blinks like he’s asked something bizarre.

“...Huh? Yeah! I mean. I think it’s okay, you know. For one person to have a mark and the other not to. I mean-“ Sakura fiddles with her hair. “I think it’s okay _now_.”

Gaara gazes at her for a long time.

He says nothing.

She fidgets some more, suddenly defensive.

“I mean, I don’t get it why you think that’s such a _problem_.”

“The problem is I’m Sunan.”

Sakura frowns.

”So?”

”So. My son is the Kazekage. If he ever needs assistance, my loyalty is to Suna and to him over all. My stay here is temporary. A name on my body will not change that.”

Sakura stills.

“And you’re gonna go and tell Lee-san all of that?”

Gaara’s fingers tighten.

“What _choice_ do I have? This isn’t something that can be hidden in Konoha.”

Sakura’s hands shake on the clipboard, then still.

She puts a hand on Gaara’s shoulder. Her grip is unexpectedly firm.

“Go ahead and get dressed already will ya? If someone walks in they’re gonna get a weird idea.”

Gaara’s knuckles tighten as he pulls his mesh armor back on, then his shirt, the shapeless tunic and apron. Pants. Hat. 

Sakura says nothing as he pulls himself back into his layers. Her eyes linger on the flowers tucked into the brim of his hat. A little hint of something that might be a smile.

“You’ve kind of changed a lot, you know.”

Gaara pauses.

He says nothing, slipping back into his socks. A welcoming gift from Lee and Metal. They have little Tanuki on them. He catches Sakura staring at those too.

She stops him by the door.

“Look...I know you haven’t been here long...but Lee-san’s wanted a soulmate almost as much as he’s wanted to be a Shinobi.”

Something stills inside of Gaara.

“He’s probably...wanted this his whole life. Don’t-“ The lines between her brows deepen. “Don’t _ruin_ this for him.”

Gaara said nothing for a long time, eyes drifting to Sakura’s arm.

“...Names on the skin don’t mean anything unless you both think they do. I’ve seen too much go wrong to lie to him and pretend this has any greater meaning.”

The temperature in the room _dropped_.

“You _definitely_ can’t tell him that!”

“I’m not going to _lie_ to Rock Lee and allow him to make a second mistake-“

Sakura’s hand bit into his shoulder so hard it startled him, his sand reacting in an instant, balling up around her fingers. He wasn’t even wearing his armor, just whatever handfuls fit into the pockets of his apron, worn fine and soft as dust. He could kill someone with a breathful of it.

And Sakura’s grip didn’t loosen in the _slightest_ , her nails biting into the scar of her husband’s _Chidori_ those decades ago. Shock. And then pain, so Gaara’s hands found her wrist, knees threatening to buckle.

“Listen. I don’t know how they do things in Suna. But you _think_ about what you’re gonna say to Lee-San before you say it.”

For a second Sakura’s expression is almost as terrifying as Tsunade’s.

Gaara frowns, and releases his sand with an effort.   
  


To his surprise Sakura’s grip doesn’t loosen, it intensifies.

He hisses in surprise and pain.

“...I’ll _try?”_

She releases him after a moment.

Low throbbing aftershocks of pain emanate through his shoulder. Gaara rolls it.

”...In Suna, our marks are hidden. It’s a part of who we are, but the marks of bond are meant to be private.” He isn’t my sure how to explain any of this. It wasn’t something any child of Suna needed to be taught. It was in the paints of the Puppet Corps, and in the veil across Baki’s cheek.

  
Sakura’s eyes narrowed.

“Whatever. You do whatever you’re gonna do, but,” The fire was still in her eyes. A surprising anger. “Lee-san’s my _friend.”_

Gaara _smiled._

”Have you ever told him that?”

Sakura’s mouth twisted. 

  
She sounded like Naruto.

And if Gaara told her that, he knew exactly what she’d say.

“...Thank you. Haruno.”

Sakura gives him a face he can’t quite read.

”Get lost, already. I have another patient, and I’ve already kept them waiting because you jumped the queue.”

”I see. Goodbye, then.”

He’s gone in a rustle of flour-fine sand.

The marks of her nails throb all the way home. 

————

Gaara can sense Lee’s presence in his home from the forest path, cutting through his unsettled tangle of emotions like a beam of sunlight.

He leaves his sandals at the door, noting Lee’s aren’t there, and hangs his hat, catching his eye on the case of flowers last left by Himawari. Two days old, and starting to droop, much like the ones in his hat.

His guest doesn’t seem to hear or sense him. That makes Gaara frown, casting out for his presence in the house, and finding it in his room.

“Lee?”

He opens the door.

Lee’s there.

He stares at him like he’s never seen him before, eyes glassy with tears. There are still twigs in his hair. He must have only just returned, and come straight there.

Something about that makes Gaara’s stomach tighten. 

“ _What-?_ ”

“Oh!” Lee wipes his face quickly, putting back on his smile. He’s holding a pillow. _Gaara’s_ pillow. “Gaara-kun! Welcome home-“  
  


His smile is radiant. 

Gaara pulls the pillow out of his grip and delicately puts a hand over his nose. There are twigs in Lee’s hair, and damp patches all along his front, his two knotted _hitai-ate._

He _smells_ like a journey.

“Have you washed?”

Lee’s face falls.

“I-“

Gaara sighs.

“Lee.”

“I had thought perhaps you were resting, and the window was open so-!”

“I wasn’t. I went to the village.”

His arms are tightly folded, the offending knuckles hidden. A bandage would have just made this worse because Lee would have asked to see the injury.

He doesn’t know what he’ll do if Lee sees before he _tells_ him.

He formulated no plan on the way back from the Hospital, curiously blank even now. Something foreboding as he checked his shoulder and found bruises in the shape of Sakura’s fingertips like a warning. Narrow crescents of blood.

_Lee-san’s my friend._

“Oh. Oh I see,” Lee murmurs, still staring at him with those bright, expectant eyes.

He has no way of knowing. No way at all.

Gaara’s arms tighten, hiding his knuckles. His shoulder throbs.

“Use my bath,” Gaara says.

“But you-“

“I have clothes that will fit you.” He doesn’t mention they’re Kankuro’s, left behind from his last visit and brought to Gaara by Tamaki Inuzuka, who hadn’t looked embarrassed or upset in the slightest. “How long were you running?” He asks instead.

“ _Uhm_.”

Lee quails under the look Gaara gives him. Gaara relents, glancing around his room.

Nothing else looks out of place but the pillow and the tears still drying on Lee’s cheeks.

“Where’s Metal?”

“We were going to make you dinner. There were some quite amazing potatoes,” Lee mumbles. Not an answer.

“That bath’s big enough for two if you don’t finish before he comes back.”

He tries to ignore the flush that breaks over Lee’s face, the hasty way he looks at Gaara’s aproned body, then looks away.

  
It’s hard to ignore Lee.

Gaara raises his eyebrows.

“ _Metal_ might be back at any moment,” he reminds him softly. Not quite a reproach. Lee’s look is decorous but _tangible_. Plainly interested in a way Gaara’s still getting used to. “I’ll put him in there with you.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Lee says meekly. He isn’t distressed by that. Konoha has communal baths and hot springs that people go to to just. Be _around_ one another. Naked. In the hot water. Gaara can’t think of anything more absurd than that.

  
Anything more casual. Utterly Konohan.

Lee brushes fingertips along Gaara’s hair, tucking it behind his ear. He looks at him then, long and full of emotion Gaara can’t read. Fear there. Gaara knows how to see _fear_ at least.

  
  


“I missed you...Gaara-kun,” he whispers.

Gaara lets himself be touched. He feels quieter. More still and at peace when Lee touches him.

“...I have something to tell you,” he murmurs.

His shoulder throbs.

_I have no idea how to tell you._

Lee’s face morphs into concern, and Gaara shakes his head, lightly pressing the palm of his left hand into the damp divot of Lee’s sternum.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” he adds. “But it’s something we should discuss.”

He looks bulkier than when Gaara last saw him, which is hard to believe. He finds himself rubbing a thumb along the curve of Lee’s chest, just so.

Lee’s eyes draw down to the touch, then back up.

“Is it...about... _us_?” Lee whispers, blinking hard. He’s ready to cry again. Lee’s emotional even by Konohan standards.

Gaara considers how best to defuse the anxiousness on Lee’s earnest face.

He drops the hand.

“I have no complaints about our current arrangement.”

Lee’s breath shudders out in relief.

“Oh.”

“It’s just something I should discuss with you, is all. It’s urgent, but it can wait long enough for a bath. You’ve been running solidly for...four days?” Gaara guesses.

Lee doesn’t meet his eyes.

A crease forms between Gaara’s invisible eyebrows.

“Five...?”

Lee still doesn’t look at him.

“ _More_?“ Gaara mutters in disbelief.

Lee stares him down stubbornly.

“We had thought to make it a game!”

“Where were you even deployed?”

“Oh! Metal and I were in Stone Country, and then in the Land of Lightning!”

Gaara huffs out a breath.

“You’ve been running for _two weeks_?”

“What? No! Of course not! It does not take two weeks for me and my adorable Metal to run from the Land of Stone! It barely even takes one!”

Gaara exhales, inwardly reminding himself that math clearly isn’t Lee’s strong point.

This was probably why Naruto couldn’t give him a clear answer as well. The Land of Stone’s hidden village is a two week journey for most shinobi. Of _course_ Lee ran that in half the time. Less, possibly.

The mark on his knuckles feels painfully stretched with his grip.

He tucks the hand a little closer to his armpit to keep himself from doing something inadvisable.

“Go wash,” he whispers.

“Right! Yes! I am sorry. I must smell terrible-“

He doesn’t. The scent of even Lee’s old sweat is far from unpleasant to Gaara.

“I want Metal to wash after you’re out,” he murmurs. “We can discuss this while preparing dinner.”

And hopefully figure out how to explain this to Metal. Who would almost certainly see his hands at dinner and recognize his Papa’s name. Metal’s distressingly observant. It’s a side effect of his anxiety.

Gaara can’t think of a single logical reason it bothers him to have Metal maybe discover this change before his father does.

Lee cups his face in his hands so abruptly Gaara startles, and startles harder at the melting warmth in the look he gives him.

“Thank you so much for offering me your hospitality, Gaara-kun.”

“You don’t have to be so _formal,_ ” Gaara mutters, tilting his head out of the warmth of Lee’s hands, which feel so _good_ against his freezing ears he almost forgets himself and leans into it.

It’s not like Lee isn’t there often enough to be something more than a guest.

He tightens the cross of his arms.

He can’t get distracted. Not before he tells him.

Lee’s hands fall. And Gaara wishes again he could read his expressions properly.

“Right!” He says brightly, punching the air. “If I am not done with my bath in five minutes I shall weed your entire garden-!”

Gaara clamps a hand on Lee’s arm quickly.

“ _Don’t_.”

The last time Lee had tried to help in the garden he’d trampled a particularly delicate row of seedlings.

Lee cows under his glare.

Gaara remembers to reduce his grip, and realizes sharply he’s reached with his dominant hand.

He removes hand quickly, tucking it behind his back, stepping away.

“Take your time,” he whispers. “Enjoy it.”

Lee’s breath exhales out in a rush, gazing at Gaara from under his eyelashes, giving him one last melting look.

He didn’t notice anything at all.

He really is just looking at his face like that.

_I don’t understand why you keep looking at me like that._

“Then I will enjoy myself with great gusto!”

He presses his lips to the scar on Gaara’s forehead so swiftly Gaara doesn’t even have a moment to register he’s being kissed, and then Lee’s gone in a bolt down the hallway.

————

Lee hums in the tub, great off key bursts of song and happy splashing. An occasional loud “whoops!” as he apparently drops the soap.

He’s never bathed at Gaara’s before.

Gaara’s never heard him _singing_ in the bath before.

The closest he’s come is soaking his feet during the height of the summer, with his jumpsuit knotted around his waist, and the scent of his sweat heavy and humid in Gaara’s nostrils.

Gaara had still been Kazekage then, processing the paperwork, formalizing the arrangements, his current home nothing more than a summer diversion destination for the Nara then. A place to retreat into the cool of the forest.

Lee had brought and highly recommended his salts, and Gaara had grappled with the almost unknown desire to taste the dark different salt of Lee’s sun-loved skin. Experiencing his hospitality. His taste of Konohan culture and welcome.

His openness.

Gaara considers his options and waits until things sound well underway before knocking once and coming in with Lee’s left-behind soaking salts.

“Oh! Gaara-kun!” Lee stops singing immediately, covering his nipples with his hands like Gaara hasn’t seen him naked before, his head turned away like he’s the one seeing something too intimate. “Was I too loud? I did not mean to bother you!”

“No. You’re fine,” Gaara hesitates. “I used some of your salt for my garden, but most of it’s still here.”

“For your-? _Huh_?”

Gaara gestures with the canister, mouth drawn into a thin line.

“Ooh! Did you not use it for yourself? It really does make you feel a great deal better!”

Gaara has difficulty remembering to do more than take a dip in the stream. Has difficulty forgetting how Lee’s mouth finally tasted in the wet summer heat of Konoha, his sweat sticking to the grains of Gaara’s sand armor before Gaara let it fall away, and the Cicadas screamed and screamed and screamed, Konoha-loud...

He may be a Kage no longer, but the powerlessness of being in water has stuck with him. He dislikes it.

Lee doesn’t need to know any of that.

Gaara reaches into the can.

He’s passed the salt through his fingers enough for a bare infusion of chakra. Nothing like what he’d use for anything with any precision. He’s showing off for the sake of showing off, he knows, as he puffs a little cloud of glittering mineral out of the bag, and sends it across Lee’s skin, covering his back like a layer of armor. 

Lee’s eyes widen. His wet hair is pulled out of his face and sticks to his forehead only in little clumps, so Gaara can see his eyebrows in their entirety.

He dislikes water, but _Lee_ in water is an entirely different story, with his thick brown thighs damp, little droplets beading on his skin, dewing his long eyelashes...

  
Gaara drags his eyes away reluctantly.  
  


Most people would feel something, he notes with a certain level of distance.

Lee shifts, straightening his back, forgetting modesty as Gaara seats himself beside the edge of the tub.

“You do not need to trouble yourself-“

“You were favoring your right side again. Running for even a few days at top speed takes its toll on the body for any Shinobi. Even someone with your stamina and reserve,” Gaara counters.

He adds another handful of infused salt to the water, and sits at the side of the tub, idly swirling it with his fingers

Lee stares at him from under his eyelashes.

His ears are a charming shade of pink. He worries at his lower lip with his fine straight teeth.

“Metal may return at any moment.”

Gaara just looks at him.

He pulls his left hand out of the water.

“I’m not _seducing_ you,” he clarifies.

Lee’s face falls ever so slightly before he quickly covers it with a smile.

“O-Oh yes, of course not.”

“I was checking to see if you were alright.”

Lee forces a giant grin.

“Of course! I am wonderful!”

He is, Gaara thinks.

He’s wonderful.

The damp of Lee’s skin is making it harder to control the salt. A flex of Gaara’s chakra has it scrubbing at Lee’s broad shoulders, polishing at them before the paste becomes a slurry, and Lee’s eyes slide shut with a groan, arching his back like a cat.

“Oh, that feels _nice._..”

“There’s no reason for you to overdo it,” Gaara murmurs, flexing his hands to work the damp salt across Lee’s stiff muscles.

“It is not overdoing it to want to be a splendid ninja,” Lee murmurs. His mouth is slack, eyes closed as Gaara goes to work on his shoulders, polishing at Lee’s skin, kneading the muscle until his bronze skin flushes red.

“Konoha has fewer Shinobi. You’d think they would recognize you should be treated as precious.”

Lee makes an indefinite noise, melting a little further back into the most absurd use Gaara thinks he’s ever put his power to. He presses his lips together then slackens them.

“You do not have to do this you know,” Lee murmurs in a tone that makes clear he really hopes Gaara continues massaging his arms and shoulders with his Jutsu. “Really I am alright.”

Konoha’s Shinobi still outnumber Suna’s four to one. But a Kage in Suna would never send someone like Lee on such a grueling journey without a period of rest after. Without the opportunity for _attention._ At least an instruction to see a medical nin.

Gaara’s far from a MediNin.

He thinks about Haruno again despite himself.

Lee just gives a slight groan, and props his bad leg on the edge of the tub.

Gaara takes his foot in his hands, startling Lee into a jerk.

“It’s only me.”

He presses his thumbs into the arch of Lee’s foot and Lee’s entire upper half dips underwater in a cloud of salt with a little noise of startled delight.

Two of his toes are twisted oddly, the underside of the heel rough, the whole thing a maze of scars and healed bones.

Lee re-emerges to the surface, squirting water out of his mouth like a fountain, pushing his wet hair out of his eyes as Gaara goes to massage the muscle of his calf, working with the same strength he’d normally reserve for his garden.

Lee groans, tipping back until just his head and his hands are above the water.

“Lee.”

Lee doesn’t hear him. His ears are underwater.

Gaara sighs.

A hot bath like this would be beyond wasteful in Suna.

But in Konoha it’s just a minor treat.

He pokes Lee in the arch of the foot until his eyes open.

Lee jerks back up out of the water.

“What? Yes?!”

“I also came to discuss something with you before Metal comes back and I’m forced to discuss it with him.”

Lee’s face goes terrifically serious, withdrawing his foot. He leans forward on the edge of the tub so he’s just a set of enormous shoulders and his odd, distinctive face. His dark eyes are abruptly very grave.

He reaches for Gaara’s face.

His hands are warm from the bath, and extremely gentle.

“What is the matter? Are you alright?”

Gaara lowers his eyes and pulls his fingers out of the water.

Lee’s eyes search his face, one big hand coming up to stroke at Gaara’s hair.

“Oh, _Gaara-kun_ ...I had thought so. It is something grave indeed for you to make _that_ face.”

Gaara stares blankly. “This is my normal face.”

Lee doesn’t seem to hear him, lost in a sighing speech, his broad chest puffed out, hands trying to draw Gaara’s face towards it. (An attempt Gaara resists with all he’s worth. Lee still doesn’t seem to notice.) “Please do not carry this burden alone when you may confide in me!”

Gaara doesn’t change his expression in the slightest. 

“That’s what I’m doing-“

“Then I will surely listen!”

“ _Lee_ -“ 

“Oh! Right! What is it? Please share this terrible burden with me! Confide in me, and we shall share our precious tears togeth-“

“It’s my _hand,_ ” Gaara interrupts, because Lee could go on for a while if allowed to.

“What?” Lee gasps in outrage. “Who hurt you?! Oh no! Is it _arthritis?_! A debilitating muscular sickness?! Some cruel and unusual jutsu-?!”

“It’s nothing like that,” Gaara growls. “Let me finish or look for yourself.”

Lee squints at him for a moment, then his eyes draw down to Gaara’s fingers.

He goes utterly still. Gaara couldn’t even hear him breathing for a moment.

“That...is...” he stammers, hands finding Gaara’s.

He stares at the mark.

“That is...my _name_...” Lee managed to whisper.

“I noticed it this morning in the garden.”

Lee’s breathing is coming rough and heavy now. The heaving the precludes sobs

“It is...really my name!” He whimpers. Fat tears spill over his eyes.

Gaara sighs.

“That’s what I needed to discuss. It doesn’t change anything. My loyalty is still to Suna. It has to be.”

Lee squeezes his hand, still oozing his tears.

“ _You are wearing my name!_ ”

Ah yes. He’d thought this would be a problem.

He tilted Lee’s head up so he’d look at him with the fingers not currently being squeezed by Lee, who was blubbering at him like he’d said yes to a Konohan marriage.

“Listen to me, Lee. This doesn’t change what I have to do.”

Lee shakes his head. He’s smiling through his tears.

“So _that_ is what it looks like...”

Gaara frowns.

Why would Lee not know what his own soul mark looked like? He was important to plenty of people.

It had seemed an absurd thing to say in the hospital but..

“I was consulting your medical corps for why it appeared so late.”

“So...hmm?” Lee couldn’t seem to focus on the question, rolling Gaara’s knuckles between his fingertips.

“Names appear soon after an emotional peak. Our first meeting was...” Gaara glances at the scarring that spans the length of Lee’s left arm, “...memorable.”

Lee seems to notice where he’s looking because his expression grows serious again.

He presses Gaara’s knuckles to his forehead.

“Oh, Gaara-kun. I promise I will _always_ love you,” Lee whispers, eyes still moist and intense, squeezing shut around one of his great swells of emotion. “I could never hold your past against you.”

“That...isn’t what I’m asking you to focus on right now,” Gaara points out.

Lee gives a juicy sniff.  
  


Doubtless in some kind of internal monologue. Gaara’s rapidly learned to know the look.

He lowers Gaara’s hand to look at him. That searching weepy look. He’s an ugly crier. Always has been. Except to Gaara, who always found his free displays of emotion, of friendliness to be everything Gaara himself lacked and couldn’t do.

  
His wet brown eyes are still so very very warm.

“Ask anything of me and I will surely do it!”

Gaara’s breath catches despite himself.

He knows Lee’s word is his bond.

He pulls his hand away.

“Then I need you to understand that this isn’t a mark of eternal love.”

“But-“ 

“Lee. Listen to me.”

Lee settles slightly in the tub.

“It is...a soul mark, though. I do not understand-“

“If it was a soul mark shouldn’t it have appeared when I wanted nothing more in this world than to kill you for having the love I didn’t possess?”

Lee’s eyes soften exactly like Gaara had feared they would.

“Ah well. Gai-Sensei has said the path of the heart is a very convoluted one.”

“Your name should have been on me from the time I was eleven. Soul Marks can be for enemies. For family. For lovers. Even for lifetime friends and influences on a person’s life. For it to show up this late is probably foul play. A ploy to keep me in Konoha. I’ve written to Kankuro for immediate upgrades to Shinki’s security-“

Lee blinks at him and takes his head in his hands, pressing a fingertip to Gaara’s mouth to quiet him.

“You are getting extremely worried. Is it not...perhaps...a sign of your heart finding solace in a life that we may make together?”

Gaara’s lips thin into a line.

He thinks of his own shortcomings Lee still hasn’t noticed, but which he’s bound to notice sooner or later. The easy thing this was supposed to be.

“That’ll never happen,” He says quietly. 

It _can’t_ happen. Why doesn’t Lee understand that?

Lee, far from crumpling, leans closer. His eyes flash with something, breath in Gaara’s ear.

“I love nothing more than a _challenge_ , Gaara-kun, except perhaps for Metal, and for you.”

Gaara squirms in place.

“Lee-“

Lee’s hands squeeze his.

“May I call on you tonight, when I have finished our report to Naruto-kun and Metal is with his friends?”

Gaara gives him a look.

_Love me?_

_You...love me?_

Lee’s face splits in a boyish grin like he can feel the conflict his words have put into Gaara’s regimented little world.

Gaara turns his head away.

He says nothing at all.

He doesn’t trust himself to open his mouth.

Lee’s lips are soft when he kisses him, something sweet, and a tang of metal on his tongue. Like he’s said Yes with words.

Gaara lets him. He lets himself be kissed, lets Lee’s hands cover his freezing ears and press warmth down his neck until Gaara’s whole head aches.

When he pulls away, Lee’s smiling.

Gaara’s not.

“You shouldn’t love me. It’s not- I can’t promise you anything-“

Lee’s hands tighten on his.

“You do not have to promise me anything, Gaara-kun.”

He still belongs to Suna. His bones will be laid to rest with those of the previous Kage, thoroughly sealed to protect against resurrection Jutsu, or perhaps burned and scattered to dust as he’d told Kankuro he wanted to be when they were still in the war, and discussing what to be done with their remains had been a necessity. When Gaara had commandeered several ANBU scrolls to guarantee that if he was a weapon he would at least die his country’s weapon, and never return to crush his siblings or friends with a power no longer under his control.

He doesn’t belong to a man who kisses him like he’s a _person_. Just another person. Like he’s precious even with nothing to give back.

His fingers tighten on Lee’s as Lee drops kisses down his jaw and to the underside of his throat, warming him with his lips, skin sensitive, and unarmored perhaps for the first time as a matter of course instead of as a thing to be dropped in Lee’s presence and very specific circumstances.

The name on his knuckles is a trick. It has to be.

He just has to figure it out. For Lee’s sake. As well as his.

It’s...hard to think that like this.

Lee’s peppering kisses have him suddenly warm. Flushed. Like he’s borrowing Lee’s sunlight and it’s filling his ashen skin with warmth.

Lee’s fingers are damp in his collar, fingertips brushing the bruise.

Sakura had been worried about Lee, Gaara realizes suddenly. She cares about him. And her knuckles are bare.

_Is there really no one in his village who feels like this?_

He exhales slowly, tilting his head slightly, unthinking as Lee kisses the point under his ear, mouthes at the skin of his throat.

Gaara feels the flicker of Metal’s Chakra abruptly. Swiftly running up the road, unmasked, and almost as vast as his father’s.

“Your son’s here,” Gaara sighs.

Lee presses another soft kiss to his throat that makes Gaara’s fingertips dig slightly in to Lee’s bicep.

“Lee.”

“Mm,” Lee mumbles.

Gaara pushes slightly at him.

“It’s Metal,” he whispers.

He’s reluctant to part with Lee’s warmth if nothing else.

Lee pulls back like a guilty teenager, hastily rearranging himself in his tub.

“Oh no! It has certainly been more than five minutes!”

Gaara pushes his shoulders back down when he rises with a great splash, a mass of dizzyingly sun-loved skin and muscles. A squawk.

Gaara grimaces as the water hits him in the face.

“I said to enjoy yourself. I’ll send Metal in after you’re done.”

Lee’s fingertips drag lightly down the backs of Gaara’s arms. His dark eyes are huge and adoring.

“If I hurry I can help with dinner!”

Gaara pushes him down more firmly, Lee’s fingers catching at his waist, the strings of his apron.

“I’d like to speak with Metal as privately as I spoke with you.”

That gets a spark of defiance.

He’s Lee’s son. His _only_ son. He wants to be there.

Gaara swallows some of his pride.

“Please.”

Lee’s defiance drops.

His fingers brush at the fabric of Gaara’s middle.

“Alright. I will take my time.”

Gaara’s fingers rest in his damp hair.

The name on his knuckles stands out like an accusation against him, framed by dark, wet hair.

“ _Thank you_ ,” Gaara murmurs against the crown of Lee’s head.

————

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whaddup, I’m Skuun, I’m EgregiousDerp on tumblr, and my favorite thing about this Halloween was the Existence of Further Timezones, and the man dressed up as Long Haired but New 52!Suited Aquaman, who shopped at my work today blessing me as much as Five Whole Spider-Men.


	4. Dad Dating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Metal has a breakdown on FaceTime.
> 
> (Alternative title /SURPRISE YOUTHFUL METAL SOLO)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: discussions of and internalized guilt about potential infidelity. This is also Metal POV and as such, prominently features some of the work’s background pairings and his feelings about them, as well as his feelings about his position within a world with common soul marks. 
> 
> A remark is made about a gender-nonconforming character having breasts.
> 
> Reminder: there’s a timeskip for this fic. 
> 
> The Naruto generation is in their early to mid forties and the Boruto Generation is in their early to mid-twenties. The technology progression also follows, and any developments of chakra nature or Cool Ability Unlocks (™) are really just me trying to have fun. (“This ain’t about them, but hell, the kids are cool. I want them to be cool.”)
> 
> One additional thanks to Greyson (a_gay_poster) for looking over the initial draft of this. Any remaining mistakes are my own.
> 
> Titles are still borrowed from prompts for the since-passed 2020 GaaLee Bingo. The intention is to keep going and maybe hit a few prompts nobody did so everyone feels included.

————

Metal crouches behind the wall of the Forest House, next to a heap he thinks is probably for compost and prays for Denki to pick up, grocery bags all around his feet in the fallen leaves.

The little flutter of panic in his belly grows with every ring.

_Perhaps he is busy-_

_Perhaps you have made him angry-_

_Perhaps you are no longer friends-_

“Oh please please please please-“ Metal starts to pray under his breath.

The call connects, a muzzy low-light picture.

“ _Ohthankyou-“_ Metal gasps.

Iwabee’s irritable face squints at him through the camera feature, a scowl distorting his full mouth. His hat is nowhere to be seen.

“ _What?_ ” he grumbles.

“Iwabee! Is Denki there? It is an emergency!”

“... _What?_!” Iwabee grumbles louder.

“I think-“ Metal whimpers, his relief leaving him as he remembers why he called in the first place.

Inside the house he feels his Papa’s chakra rub and roil against the former Kazekage’s. A low pulse of it, mortifying even secondhand.

He squeezes his phone so hard the special impact-proof case Denki found him makes a warning creak. His eyes swim with tears. “It is just-“ Metal drops his voice to a whisper. “ _I think that my papa is...having an affair!_ ”

Denki rolls into view, his brown hair loose. He looks different without his glasses. Softer. Dreamy. Squinting. All round limbs and soft middle. Even now he doesn’t look anything like a person with Shinobi training.

He fumbles around a little bit, and Iwabee hands him his glasses without a word, moving out of focus to tie up his braids.

Iwabee’s back muscles are impressive even by Metal’s standards.

Iwabee isn’t shy about his body, and Denki has told Metal time and time again it’s always okay to call. He smiles when he does, too. He even gave him the phone in the first place.

Metal _tells_ himself that, trying to combat the hammering of his heart that tells him any second now he’s going to be rejected. That he shouldn’t have bothered them when they were clearly busy spending time _together_.

That he _really_ shouldn’t be watching Iwabee make himself _decent._

Denki’s voice is completely calm when he speaks, the phone tilting away so subtly he might have caught Metal’s staring or might not.

“What makes you think that’s what’s happening?”

Metal tears his eyes away from his other teammate and wipes them.

“He is inside with-! With Gaara-san and they are- Papa is-“ Metal wipes his eyes harder. “There is- There is no space between their chakra-“

“WHAT!”

Iwabee flies back onto the screen, almost knocking over the phone. He’s jammed the hat back onto his head so hastily it sits lopsided.

“Your dad’s cozy with the Genius of the Hidden Sand?! Since when?!”

“ _Waugh_!”

“You know if you work him up like that he won’t be able to answer,” Denki sighs. The touch of his hand is light, but it must have a hint of his meager lightning chakra in it because Iwabee makes a noise like he’s been goosed.

“I- d- hngh!”

“Take your time,” Denki says.

The words gradually unstopper from Metal’s throat.

“I do not _know_!” Metal wails, covering his face with his hands. “It is true that- It- Papa has been out of the house sometimes when I am home, but I had always thought that he must be doing a new form of training! And Gaara-san has asked me to be less formal with him, and he- he _smiles_ at Papa-“

“He’s _smiling_?!” Iwabee pulls the phone out of Denki’s hands. “There’s no way!”

Offscreen Metal hears his other teammate just chuckle before the call cuts off.

Metal blinks for a moment in the comparative silence of the Nara Forest.

_Oh no._

He jumps as his phone starts to play the theme from one of the romance games Denki’s so fond of. He nearly drops it twice trying to answer.

“H-Hello?!”

“His phone locked me out,” Iwabee grumbles, too close, the camera pointing at one eye.

Denki just chuckles as he draws back.

“It takes your chakra to unlock just like it takes mine.”

“I know that! It’s a stupid feature to have in the first place!”

Denki makes an indefinite noise.

Behind Iwabee’s braided head that hints at his quiet Kumo lineage, Metal can see the soles of Denki’s idly swinging high-arched bare feet, the bold marks across the bottoms of them, swirled with chakra patterns, ebb and flow, all grooved around Iwabee’s name. The marks are as fresh and new as they were after that study session long ago, in their academy days, when Denki had inhaled and slipped off his shoes, making that steady, brave eye contact.

The thing everyone forgets about Denki looking at his soft middle, his sloping shoulders, his mild expression is he’s _brave_. _Incredibly_ brave. Gutsy even. Braver than any of them by far.

The other thing is, Metal had trained with his friend until his fingers bled.

His Papa had caught them both in his strong arms time and time again. And had given encouragements. Many of them. He’d even offered a matching jumpsuit, which Denki had worn for a time, green fabric clinging to his little body.

But it was _Iwabee’s_ name on Denki’s feet. And it had been Iwabee that Denki had stared at, unflinching, even though their senpai and equal all at the same time had taken one look at the mark and then stormed off, red in the face.

Denki hadn’t cried.

Metal would have cried.

He would have wanted to die, finding a soulmate only to be rejected by them.

Denki was _brave._ So brave. And so gracious to pretend like it was all nothing. To sit back down with a stiff Iwabee later in front of Metal and talk so plainly.

_It doesn’t have to mean anything like that. Maybe we’re just good friends._ And he’d smiled up at Iwabee. _I’d like that._

“It’s for security,” Denki says. “You know I can’t have just anyone going through my things.”

“I get through your things just fine!”

Iwabee is too busy frowning at the screen to see how Denki’s looking at him. The soft smile that says in a frenetic world he’s found an island of peace.

_Metal_ sees.

He maybe even sees that maybe Iwabee wants to pretend he doesn’t see. One of his ears is still exposed under the slumping hat, ears rife with gold rings and tinged with red.

The thing everyone forgets about Iwabee is he’s terrified of failure. Surprisingly conservative. Fatalistic.

He doesn’t know what to do with love even if it’s right in front of him. He’s the real deal, but he has a need to posture anyway.

Metal has never understood that.

Iwabee’s a brilliant Shinobi.

For a time, Iwabee had seemed almost as impressively manly as his own Papa. An untouchable superior lashing out against a world which failed to accept him.

Metal had been there right before their Chunin exams when Iwabee had stared straight ahead like the moody senpai he no longer was and remarked with would-be-casual offhandedness _He’s really smart. And his wrists are...really small. You know. Like a girl’s._

Metal had panicked, of course. At first he hadn’t even known who Iwabee was talking about, and that had apparently been enough to set Iwabee off because he was already on edge But a few weeks from then it hadn’t mattered, when Denki’s neat handwriting spanned the length of Iwabee’s right wrist when he undid his archery wrap after practice with Hanabi-sensei, glaring back at Denki with all his typical brooding intensity.

And that had been that.

Metal had caught them kissing on the practice field a few weeks later, Denki pinning Iwabee down, twisting the front of his coat in his fists, and Iwabee looking like he _really_ didn’t mind, even still spasming with sparks.

And it had made sense in a way. Denki may have had a minimal chakra reserve and less than stellar control, but lightning was earth’s weakness.

And Metal had remembered even then Iwabee’s many excuses to touch Denki, to sling his arm around his shoulders, and team up with him. His concern for his future even thinking he wasn’t going to be a part of it.

Maybe he’d just been scared.

There had been something hungry about it all, like maybe they were still fighting when Iwabee’s hand had come up, accidentally knocking Denki’s glasses aside, and Denki had _bitten_ his mouth hard enough to get a noise of surprise, aggressive for all his small size, bearing the other boy down.

Metal had transported himself away into the back room of Auntie TenTen’s weapons shop and hidden his face in his hands before he’d even known what he was doing, before he’d even had a coherent thought other than _horror_. Grief.

Loss.

He’d _cried._ Bitterly. Not even understanding why he was crying. Not yet. Too young.

...It had been after dark when TenTen had finally found him.

He hadn’t even been able to speak to her to tell her what was wrong, hadn’t even understood it himself. Processed the realization that Denki hadn’t worn his Papa’s Jumpsuit in months, and that Iwabee’s arm sling around his own shoulders had been less frequent, his eyes wandering time and time again to Denki. Like touching him was just an excuse to touch Denki too.

It had taken Metal days before he could even be around them without making an excuse, weeks before he could blurt out _Are you dating now?!_

Both of them had looked at him like he was crazy.

_Of course not, you dumbass,_ Iwabee had grumbled, red in the face.

_We were soulmates before. Nothing’s really changed,_ Denki had said, looking relaxed, more comfortable than Metal thought he’d ever seen him. At peace finally, in a strange way. _We’re still the same team we were yesterday._

They were a good team at that, Iwabee and Denki. They complimented each other’s strengths and weaknesses. While all Metal brought was speed. His own sort of clumsy protection. His own sealing jutsu hammered into two kukri that fit together like two parts of a whole. One large, for Iwabee’s callused hand, the other smaller, to take the strain off Denki’s wrists, which were indeed fine and delicate, since Iwabee had mentioned it. Refined-looking.

They were both so _beautiful_ . Achingly beautiful. But they were his friends, his teammates, and they were _soulmates_ , and Metal was...just...well. Metal.

He’d be there to protect them.

They had one another, but he still wanted to protect them. Wanted to be _strong_ for them.

Besides, he knew why he was blank, why he was nervous.

He never understood how others didn’t fall a little in love with everyone they looked at. Picked up their habits, observed their likes and dislikes.

... _Died_ a little inside when they laughed at him.

He didn’t think his Papa with his confidence and eagerness had ever stared at so many people, terrified they would see him _looking_ , and would find him wanting.

Nothing terrified Metal so much as not knowing what a mark could be. Your best friend. Your greatest enemy. Your lover.

Nothing scared him half as much as watching love turn to hate. A spark hit ground and turn to nothing.

Even years later, the way Iwabee had grinned up at Denki, covered in earth style mud, reaching for him-

The phone case creaks again warningly.

Metal’s never found anything like that. That _relief_.

He still hadn’t.

Perhaps, blank skinned as he was, he never would.

He could hear Denki’s calm tapping at his Iwapad.

“I meant what I said. It’s not actually an affair if they’re both single.”

“Are you _serious_?!” Iwabee growls. “This is Gaara of the Desert and Metal’s Goofy Dad!”

Metal shrinks at _goofy_.

His eyes dampen.

_He probably thinks I’m goofy too._

Denki’s typing stops. He stares at Iwabee his smile turns into a scowl. That little endearing spark of stubbornness, the tenacity that had foretold he could be a fine ninja despite small chakra reserves and limited stamina. That foretold he was clever enough to wrest control of the company away from his father with the very skills his papa had insisted he learn.

The very reason Denki had ninja training but was no longer an on-duty Ninja. The reason he was an intelligence reservist, still bumping shoulders with their old classmate Sumire.

“They’re definitely _friends_ at least. I have all of Gaara-sama’s guide requests.”

“How did you-?” Iwabee stops and rolls his eyes. “You know if you keep doing that you’re going to get caught.”

Denki’s mouth curls up at the corners, squinting at him.

“Oh come on, they expect this kind of thing, otherwise they’d never make it this easy.”

“Easy for _you_.”

Metal looks away quickly from his friends flirting.

The camera pointed over one of Iwabee’s bare shoulders. One squinting eye. Metal couldn’t see the face Denki made when he laughed. Couldn’t make out the whisper Iwabee gave him. Just the response, the little chuckle of _Focus_.

Iwabee did. His fine dark eyes narrowed offscreen.

“What the hell. He’s really been asking for the same Shinobi escort for twenty years?”

The phone moved so Metal could see the crowns of their heads ducked together over Denki’s brand new Iwapad.

“Maybe longer. The records only go so far,” Denki said. He still had that mild, easy smile. He was wearing a soft, blue kimono, and Metal noted his hair was getting long, just past his shoulders. It looked good loose.

And he was staring at Iwabee again.

Metal had a fresh pang of anxiety wondering if he’d interrupted something _important_.

“What? What does it say?”

“Only that Gaara-sama’s requested your father’s aid every time he’s in the village,” Denki said, finally looking away from his soulmate and smiling through the camera of the phone.

The smile had no less warmth to it when it fixed on Metal.

The hair on the back of Metal’s neck prickled.

He shook his head hard and played back Sarada-kun’s dry talk about misattribution of arousal in his head.

“That’s really stupid! Anyone in or out of the village could find out what Lee-sensei could do and attack!”

Metal fussed in the dirt.

“They could _attack_ Papa?!”

Denki looks at him hard. He frowns slightly.

“I don’t think so. Gaara-sama’s less of a target now. And their battle styles are complementary from everything in my databooks.” He smiles a little again. “They probably feel very safe around one another.”

Like Denki and Iwabee.

Metal’s heart sank.

Inside the house he feels the two massive chakras break apart, Gaara-san’s leaving.

His papa’s bubbles vast and happy. Unguarded.

“Hey,” Iwabee squints at him. “you breathing?” 

Denki’s brown eyes look larger behind his glasses. Absolutely mild. “Remember to breathe, Metal.”

“I- I am sorry! I-“

“Quit flipping out,” Iwabee adds, frowning through the screen.

“I’m- sorry! It is just-!”

Denki’s smile broadens just a little.

“He’s not what I expected, you know. Gaara-sama.”

“Just when did _you_ go and meet the genius of the hidden sand?” Iwabee mutters, clearly offended.

Denki just chuckles, pulling off his glasses to clean them.

“You were on that earth-movers mission. With ChoCho and Sarada-kun.”

Iwabee’s scowl deepened.

“Don’t _remind_ me.”

“The company extended its welcome, and the board sent me.”

“You met _Gaara of the Desert_ ,” Iwabee grouses. “And you didn’t tell _me_?”

“It wasn’t much of a meeting. More of a welcome really. He was very polite,” Denki muses. “He didn’t want any of the gifts we brought though. He thanked us and said he had little need for luxuries, and that the welcome was enough.”

“What the _hell_ ,” Iwabee mutters. “He _gave up_ the latest Kaminariconsole?”

Denki smiles.

“I don’t think he needs to be playing Ninja Art Revolution to practice his jutsu. He accepted...a Kotatsu I think. Something small.” The smile becomes a grin. “He found father’s bug very quickly too. Father was furious.”

“He _is_ always cold,” Metal whispers thoughtfully. “He is from the desert after all. He says Papa runs hot so he never turns on his heating.”

Iwabee’s eyes widen.

“Holy shit, your dad is _totally fucking the Kazekage_.”

“Hey hey. Former Kazekage,” Denki corrects helpfully.

Metal puts his hands over his face, making a little stricken noise into his hands.

He doesn’t like to think of his Papa naked and vulnerable with a former Kage.

“Oi, Tofu. Your parents _are_ separated right?”

Iwabee’s moody look, and arrogant tilt of his chin hides his particular sort of concern.

Metal lowers his hands.

“That is...that...is…”

Iwabee shifts.

“If there’s someone in the picture-“

“No! No... It is just Papa does not talk about Mama. I know that she... did paintings? He has some of hers in the house, but they are always covered and kept in storage. He has told me to never take off the coverings.” Metal fidgets. “He does not talk about her. I think she...may have been a civilian. I had thought...something must have happened. And certainly he must have loved her very much. But I have never-!”

“Keep your voice down.”

Metal claps a hand over his mouth. Lowers it slowly.

“It is only I have never seen Papa _date_. Much less-“

Iwabee’s expression sours.

“Much less a guy? Is that what you wanna say?!”

“N-No! I would never-! That is not-!”

“You don’t need to do that. Metal likes men,” Denki chides softly. His eyes are still very gentle.

“WHAT?”

Metal balls up in the dirt.

He hasn’t had more than a few bites of potato but his stomach clenches around them regardless.

This is his worst nightmare. Abrupt revelation.

He feels sick.

_Have I been so obvious all along?_

“H-How did you-?”

Denki smiles. Soft and edged all at once. His dark eyes squint

“Oh, come on. I’m the information gatherer of team five for a reason, right?”

“How come you never told _me_?! We’re teammates! And _you_!” Iwabee rears on Denki, grabbing him by the front of the kimono. “We’re supposed to be soulmates! How come you get to meet the Genius of the Hidden Sand and talk about guys with Metal-“

“We have not-!” Metal squeaks over Denki’s laughter. “ _I_ _did not-!_ ”

Denki chuckles behind one hand.

“You’re making him nervous.”

“Oh _I_ make him nervous!” 

“Neither of you make me nervous!” Metal stammers the lie with all his might. “You are my dearest friends and I did not want you to think badly of me, that is all

“ _Why the hell would I ever think that?_ ” Iwabee shouts. There’s a flicker of something raw in his eyes. “Why would you _ever_ think you need to leave me out of something _big_ like that?”

Metal covers his face as he starts to cry.

“I did not… I did not mean to…”

“We’re _friends_!” Iwabee roars. “Do you have any idea how uncool that is?!”

“I-“

Tears trickle down Metal’s cheeks. He shrinks in on himself in humiliation. His stomach is a pit of fire.

_No one can ever know how much I wish to be close to them. Especially not-_

  
  


_Not…_

Silence stretches between them all for a moment, broken only by Metal’s little sobs, his whispered apologies.

  
  


“Whatever. Stop crying already,” Iwabee grumbles. His face is red again. “I just...thought you had- You know, that _thing_ for Sarada.”

“Sarada-San is not a _girl_ ,” Metal mumbles, just a touch defensive.

They were also a very beautiful and deadly ninja. And had turned him down completely with a talk on how fear and love were fundamentally almost interchangeable.

“Well _yeah_ but- You know what I mean!”

Denki sighs slightly.

“You’re so honest,” he mutters, patting Iwabee’s back.

“So I like tits! Is that so _wrong_?” Iwabee snaps.

Denki just shot him a mild look.

Iwabee flustered harder.

“ _Shut up!”_

“I didn’t say anything.” 

“You know I like stuff about you too-!”

“I know _exactly_ what you like about me.”

Iwabee’s dusky skin goes an almost impossible shade of red, jamming his hat back over the exposed ear when Denki ran a finger down the rim of it.

“ _I said shut up!_ Leave me alone!”

Denki grins again, looking back at the camera. His expression softens. “You know we would never think badly of you, right, Metal?”

Metal rubs his eyes.

“It was never something which I intended to conceal-!”

“Yeah,” Iwabee said, staring steadily at the floor. “Yeah. Sorry, okay? I just…” his mouth twisted. “I don’t like being left out of shit.”

“I am so sorry!”

“Don’t be. To tell the truth... I admired both of you so much,” Denki said, resting a hand against Iwabee’s neck. “Knowing what you wanted… If anything, I thought I was holding both of you back.”

“ _Bullshit!”_

“I have never thought-“ Metal exclaims, clashing with Iwabee’s vehement snort. “Oh.”

An arm tugs Denki in around the shoulder. Brief surprise. Iwabee whispering something in Denki’s ear.

“Th-That is- you are so _smart!_ ” Metal mumbles, trying not to stare at the casual affection. The protectiveness of his teammates’ embrace. “You have overcome your disabilities with innovative technologies and hard work, Denki, and have dedicated yourself to helping others do the same-!”

“Plus you’re cute,” Iwabee says, drawing back from the ear and looking away, mumbling so Metal mostly has to read his lips, reddening as he reads. “ _Way cuter than anyone in the girl squads.”_

“Aah!” Metal flails, flustered, trying to play it cool. “You have both always been so kind to me!” He whimpers, starting to cry afresh. “Even when I am making your missions harder! If anyone is a burden it is surely me, with my- my _clumsiness_ and-“

“You’re kidding, right?” Iwabee grumbles, resting his chin on the top of Denki’s head so he winces, clearly feeling the weight. “Who’s the one making the plans for everything? And who’s the guy who keeps pulling us out and looking out for us when stuff goes wrong with that special rare jutsu?”

“It is not _that_ rare,” Metal mumbles, the knife at the end of his plait suddenly feeling heavy.

He’s lucky enough to at least have an active Shinobi who can teach him. But his Auntie TenTen had always claimed there was no right or wrong way to learn Space Time Jutsu. It was all about developing a style of fighting only you could pull off.

And there were at least a few scrolls about the techniques of the fourth Hokage. If only a few. (Minato Namikaze wasn’t a reliable writer. Metal’s probably learned as much about the Fourth Hokage’s wife and her family and her lineage of sealing as he has about Space Time Jutsu.)

And the tools of the great eightfold path sage in his auntie’s shop-

“I’m saying _I’m_ the one who’s actually been held back.” Iwabee leans a little harder on Denki, his full mouth turning down at the corners in a sulk. “So it’s official. It’s the stupid way they train Shinobi these days anyway, but it’s not you two dragging the squad down and it’s never gonna be.”

“That is not true either!” Metal cries.

Denki pokes at Iwabee’s arm.

“You’re doing better at that. All you needed was to study.”

“Well…” Iwabee mutters, glancing at Denki under his eyelashes. “I guess I’ve got a good teacher.”

Denki chuckles. “I wouldn't say that like it’s rare. Even Lord Seventh was impressed with your guts.”

“I told you to forget that,” Iwabee mutters, reddening. “It wasn’t because I was good, it was because I _failed_ and was too stupid to stop.”

Denki tilts closer to him, eyes bright, pushing up the hem of Iwabee’s hatband to expose a ringed ear.

“ _You persevered,_ ” he whispers into Iwabee’s ear, so softly Metal has to read his lips and approximate from the side view “ _Like a Shinobi.”_

He knows he isn’t imagining the shudder of Iwabee’s shoulders, the hooded lidding of his eyes.

Metal aches just a little watching them. Watching the little smile that slips back onto Denki’s lips as Iwabee drops a kiss to the kimonoed shoulder, then pulls back as though remembering to be embarrassed.

Tears slip down his cheeks despite himself.

Iwabee scowls.

“Well there you go again, Tofu Tower.”

“He doesn’t like being called that,” Denki murmurs.

“Why not? He’s big, and pale, and blubbery, and you squeeze just a little and all the water comes out-“

“You’re _embarrassing_ him,” Denki whispers.

“I do not mind,” Metal sniffles. “I have told you before. Tofu is...delicious and comforting with spring onion! And it builds muscle and strength! It makes many people feel full! So it is...” he sniffled again. “It is fine! You are...only trying to tell me to be strong!”

”What? No, you _dumbass_ ! I’m _telling you_ you’re strong already,” Iwabee mutters, looking away and scrubbing at the back of his hat with a hand. “Besides, I like your dad. He’s a dork, but he’s cool. And he’s definitely _strong_. The old way shinobi _used_ to be. So if someone hurts him they’re gonna have to answer to me.”

Denki chuckles, looking a little uneasy.

“ _Iwabee._ You can’t fight Gaara-sama, he’s a former Kage.”

“Do I look like I care? I’m way stronger than I used to be! And it’ll be his fault if he messes around with Metal’s dad! I bet they hyped him up for the data books! There’s no way he’s even as strong as Lord Seventh!”

Iwabee’s gesticulating knocks off Denki’s glasses. His expression warps into alarm in an instant.

“Shit! You alright?”

“Please be careful, Denki! Do not be so rough with him!”

“What? Shut up! I touch him plenty gently!” Iwabee snaps.

Denki snorts behind his wrist, and Iwabee colors quickly.

“I’m _fine_ ,” he says. His soft eyes are back on Metal, disfocused without his lenses. “You’ll call me if there’s anything else that worries you, right?”

Metal’s hands tremble on his phone case as he stares into the eyes of one of his two best friends in all the world.

“I do not want to worry _you_ -“

“Oi! Tofu! If we don’t hear from you, don’t you think we both worry way worse?”

“I-“ Metal falters. “Wh-what?”

Iwabee makes an irritated noise.

“Idiot! It’s been weeks and you didn’t even text us! What the hell is that all about, huh?”

_Weeks…?_

“Aah!” Metal realizes, “Oh no! I had been so focused on the mission with Papa that I-“

“Was it a good mission?” Denki asks.

Metal cradles his phone.

He thinks back to ponding marble with his fists. To long nights of mountain climbing in the moonlight with his papa. The taste of the metallic sweet potatoes touted as the new super ninja food: a natural alternative to food pills with fewer side effects. The flesh only slightly bluer-green than the suits he’d worn comfortably since he was a child, perfecting his bodily mastery.

“Yes…” Metal decides, whispering. “Yes. It was a good mission.” He hesitates. “I feel as though I have not been spending as much time with Papa lately, so it was...very pleasant.”

Iwabee huffs, sounding like one of Kakashi-sama’s big dogs.

“Don’t avoid your old man or things will get really awkward.”

“I will not!” Metal blurted, shaking his head. “Of course not!”

“You had fun spending time with Lee-Sensei, didn’t you?” Denki’s eyes are soft half-moons of happiness. The little pudge under his eyes was very visible without his glasses. Oddly endearing.

He probably can’t even see the screen right.

Metal fiddles with the phone case and does his best not to think about Denki without his glasses, Iwabee without his hat. He’d missed them. So much. Missed just talking with them like this.

It’s enough. It _has_ to be-

“We were helping with the building and rock blasting in Stone Country! It is so beautiful there!” He hesitates. “I wish...Lord Seventh had assigned us all together.”

Iwabee pitches the phone closer to his face.

“Hey,” he mutters. “When you’re done freaking out and your dad makes his dumb excuse to hang out with Lord Gaara, you’d better get over here. Denki’s been trashing my ass at the new Call of Kage for Kaminariconsole 5.”

“What?! Call of Kage Special ANBU Force is out already?! I missed it?!”

Aaaaaah! Shikadai’s probably already beaten the game and unlocked all the special characters! He’ll have spoilers!

Denki snorts behind his hand. “You use the same moves and keep playing heavy units,” he shoots at Iwabee.

Iwabee grabs him around the neck in a loose chokehold that seems more an excuse to breathe in Denki’s ear if his giggling is anything to go by.

“ _Get over here, already, Metal._ Help me wreck this nerd and then come pass out in a real bed for once.”

Metal’s cheeks warm even as Denki laughs, whispering, _You like video games way more than me._

“Like hell I do!” Iwabee growled.

Denki just laughed.

“I have your reinforced controller,” Denki reassures Metal through the screen, his eyes almost gone with his grinning, half-hiding it behind Iwabee’s arm. “Please come by. It would make Iwabee happy.”

“What? Shut up!” Iwabee mutters, cheeks very pink. “It’s just been a while, that’s all! I just hate having to catch up when our three man squad should be eternal!”

He balks suddenly like he’s said something odd.

“It is,” Denki says, like it’s nothing odd at all. “No matter what happens.”

His gaze through the screen seems suddenly intense.

Metal hasn’t shared close quarters with his team in a civilian setting in what feels like ages. They must think he’s as sleepless as Gaara-san. They have no idea how they look to him in their sleep, how he wishes he could rest with them forever.

How terrified he is that he’ll do something to incriminate himself: talk in his sleep, or nestle himself too close to Iwabee’s broad back, or find his arms around Denki’s soft middle.

He has to be _careful_.

Denki and Iwabee are soulmates and he’s just...Metal.

He rubs at the mark on his upper arm under his jumpsuit. The secret he’s kept even from his team. The secret he’s undertaking for their sakes. Pushing onward. Independently. On his own. So he doesn’t hold them back anymore from their happiness.

_This may be one of the last times you have this..._

“Oi. Don’t you even _think_ about ditching,” Iwabee mutters. He doesn’t look at the phone. “Even if you don’t want to hang with _me,_ Denki missed you loads and he’s been talking my ear off about how there’s some chick character in this game you’re probably going to love.”

Denki bats the side of his head against Iwabee’s jaw.

“Actually, I told you he doesn’t have to play Sapporo-San if he doesn’t want to. She’s not his type.”

“How come you think _you’re_ so smart about Metal’s type, huh? He always plays chicks!”

“I do not _always-_ “ Metal began to stammer.

“He likes characters with moving backstories. And Sapporo-san’s breasts are larger than he likes,” Denki says serenely.

Metal feels like the floor could just about swallow him up.

“I do not _always-_! And certainly not for-“

“She’s too much of a fanservice character for Metal. So he’ll play as Number Eleven or he’ll play as Inosenpu-kun.”

“The Wolf of the Whirlwind? The _Speedster_? Come on, Denki! He’s _not_ gonna play _Senpu._ He’s got no _stamina_ even if his special attack is off the charts-“

“Metal has the finesse. He’s better at that kind of thing than we are.” Denki chuckles. His eyes are warm through the screen. “You’ll be by soon, won’t you?”

Metal can feel his heart pounding through his throat and has to struggle to speak.

“I _guess_ Inosenpu has the ass suit in his ascended form…” Iwabee mutters. There’s pink in his cheeks. 

“ _The what suit_?!” Metal whispers in horror. Neither of his teammates seems to hear him, Iwabee continuing on.

“But Sapporo’s _way better_ hands down with her jump animation-“

Denki’s chuckling.

“I’m telling you, Metal doesn’t like those kinds of girls. They make him nervous.”

Iwabee snorts.

“You kidding? Metal’s a _man’s man_. He can handle the curves on Sapporo-“

“ _I do not know what you are talking about and it is making me more nervous!_ ” Metal shrieks.

Both Denki and Iwabee look at one another.

Simultaneously they start laughing.

“You’ll come by, won’t you?” Denki says, eyes squinted up into dark crescents, “It’s not the same without you here.”

Iwabee grunts and nods. His mouth is still curled into a smile, and the inner edge of it is a starburst of soft pink, as soft and full as ChoCho’s-  
  


Metal tears his eyes quickly away.

_Nothing_ is as terrifying as thinking about the most beautiful girl in the village. Not even the ANBU.

“I-“

Metal’s mouth pinches.

They’re _insisting._

Denki’s too clever to let him off without an actual answer.

And he wants to be there more than anything, smack between Denki and Iwabee, with his heart leaping every time Iwabee claps a hand on his shoulder to shake him for a good move or that Denki leans into him, just the tip of his tongue visible between his lips as he concentrates utterly on the game.

“I will be there as soon as I have finished making Papa and Gaara-san dinner,” Metal whispers. His eyes swim with tears. With guilt. “I- I have missed you both so much so well. I-“

The hair on the back of his neck is standing on end, he realizes with abrupt paranoid instinct.

Metal slowly looks up.

The blandly handsome face of Gaara of the desert stares back at him with his oddly colorless, wide-set eyes. 

Metal freezes in place, like a Nara Deer.

The shadows around Gaara’s eyes run deep, bags of ruined bruise-colored skin pouching beneath. Being in Konoha hadn’t changed that his skin is the ashy color of packing sand, like the Iwa nin use to lay their foundations. He’s not even as pale as Metal, who must take after his unknown mother. He’s just an odd color, not pale so much as more like he’s been kept from the light for too long and has gone oddly greenish. Even the Konoha sunlight has barely done more than lay a band of pink sunburn across the top of the former Kazekage’s wide nose and flat cheekbones.

He’s a surprisingly small person up close. Shorter than most of the men in the village even. And some of the women. But Metal’s crouched in the dirt surrounded by grocery bags, and Gaara as he is seems to loom over him. He’s wearing a rust red smock, and he rubs his hands together which are covered by tiny, black fingerless gloves. Probably cold.

In the instant it takes Gaara to glance at him, Metal is inexplicably sure that the Former Kazekage utterly and quietly _hates_ him.

“I-“

“What is it?”

“Oi, Tofu! We asked you a question!”

“I-I-I must go! I love you!” Metal squeaks without thinking, jamming his thumb so hard into the screen he feels it crack even through the case.

His brain catches up with what he’s said after he says it.

_Oh God I said that I loved them! That was so inappropriate!_

_Oh my God I said it in front of Gaara-San!_

Gaara’s expression doesn’t change even as Metal once again debates whether or not to become a rogue ninja.

“What are you doing out here?”

Gaara’s voice rasps like he’s been shouting even on the best of days.

“It- I-!” Metal helplessly clutches the bags like they’ll protect him from the wrath of the genius of the hidden sand. “M-My- Team-?”

Gaara’s mouth twists ever so slightly.

He always sounds like he’s sighing. Disappointed. His voice right now is the resigned rustle of the leaves. The sound of the wind.

“Come in out of the cold before you get sick.”

“Y-Yes sir!” Metal squawks, scrambling to his feet.

“My name is fine,” Gaara murmurs, for a moment sounding like Lord Sixth, and also somehow even more incredibly tired.

“ _Yes mister Gaara-San, sir!”_

_Oh no! That was too many sirs! Now he’ll know for sure that you think he’s involved with Papa!_

For a moment Metal just simply _panics._

Gaara frowns minutely at him, his face odd. Eyebrowless. Metal fights the urge to apologize with all he’s worth, sweating clear through the armpits of his specialty Maito Suit.

“...I’ll make some tea,” Gaara says.

“Oh-“

(Metal would rather die than be impolite but Gaara’s tea is _awful._ Both too bitter from overbrewing and too sweet from trying to compensate for it. It’s worse even than _Gai-sensei’s,_ which is a feat in and of itself considering-)

“N- Please allow me to-“

His bags smack into a little cloud of sand, steadying them. The pockets of Gaara’s apron are filled with _sand._

“Oh! I am so sor-!”

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Gaara murmurs. He has to crane his neck to look up at Metal like this. He’s a full foot shorter than Metal. Maybe more.

_A gift! Give him the gift!_

“I- I have-“

Metal scrambles for the right bag.

Gaara’s stare is bland, cold-blooded, watching him fuss with his bags and scramble so hard he tears one open.

Sand catches the very item he’s reaching for.

“Th-“

Metal takes the styrofoam container from the grip of the sand.

“This- Th-This is-“

His words won’t come.

Gaara waits for him for a few moments, watching him wave his container as if that will help convey it’s for him.

His pale eyes finally slide from the waving container back to Metal’s face.

His expression is utterly placid. Inscrutable. Exactly what anyone would expect from a lifetime politician. The commander in chief of the last great ninja war. Possibly the last war _ever_.

“Lee’s in the bath. When he’s done you can have your turn.”

_In the-_

Metal falters, nearly tripping over his own feet.

Tears swim in his eyes.

_He- He has already taken Papa’s honor so quickly?!_

Sand takes the bags off of Metal’s unresisting hands, and the little styrofoam box of saba.

The shadowed eyes stare for a long moment, then rise.

“...I’ll start dinner,” Gaara rasps.

Metal slumps against the ground, streaming his silent tears.

_So even you could not stand strong against him, Papa!_

_Oh Papa I am so sorry!_

_If only I had been there for you!_

Metal inhales deeply, clenching a fist.

He chases after the narrow retreating back of the former Kazekage.

“Please wait!”

Gaara stops so suddenly Metal almost bowls him over.

Metal has questions. So many questions. Perhaps even accusations, but…

He’s so _small_ up close.

Smaller than Denki even, Metal realizes. Gazing up at him flatly, expectantly, the styrofoam covered gift in his little gloved hands.

His papa has _chosen_ this person. This daunting, utterly infathomable Shinobi.

He hears Denki’s voice in his mind’s ear.

_Take your time._

Metal clenches his hands, staring at the black knuckles of Gaara’s gloves. He nods once at the invisible spirit of Denki.

_Don’t screw this up, Tofu._ The invisible inner Iwabee advises.

Metal’s jaw clenches.

“I would like to help!”

Gaara has no eyebrows, but the ridge of skin where his eyebrows should be furrows slightly.

“You’ve had a long journey,” he says slowly.

Metal punches at the air with even greater enthusiasm.

“Please let me!”

Gaara stares at him for a long moment.

Metal still can’t read his expression, but it’s definitely a different expression than his normal one.

He finally bows his head. There’s a line of grease in the part of his dull red hair. A hint of something that might be a smile in his eyes as he sighs, “...Alright.”

He turns almost before Metal can register the response.

_Alright?!_

_Alright!_

Metal scrambles to follow him.

————

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whaddup, I’m Skuun. I’m EgregiousDerp on tumblr, mostly nocturnal by nature, and currently shifting over to a work schedule that starts my day at four in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Whaddup, I’m Skuun. I’m EgregiousDerp both here and on Tumblr, and I’m flying by the seat of my pants.
> 
> Everyone’s lonely, Gaara, let’s get you some tattoos, bitch.


End file.
